Extra Sleep Key to Cure Alzheimer's, says Study
In a move that is set to thrill the Alzheimer patients globally, the Medicine Department at the Washington University in St Louis has conducted a study on the relation between sleep being used to cure Alzheimer's.
According to reports by University Herald the study comprised of three groups of fruit flies whose ability to remember was hampered by disabling one critical memory gene. The groups were then observed and it was observed that all the three exhibited different inhibitions.
The first group developed an Alzheimer's like condition whilst the ability to encode new memories was hampered in the second group following the fly's brain cells inability to reinforce new connections. On the contrary the third group was left with a plethora of such connections.
Subsequently three methods of invoking slumber were used in the insects. The first one involved simulating a group of key brain cells whilst the second one involved injecting a drug which could mimic a key chemical messenger. However, the third technique involved boosting the production of a protein linked to sleep.
The results were then simulated into a report by The Express Tribune wherein it has been claimed that irrespective of the technique been used, it was found that extra sleep ranging to about three four hours over a course of two days helped in curing this condition. Moreover, it was clarified that sleep doesn't repair the disabled genes but provided the ability to bypass this disability and create new connections.
Furthermore, a senior author of the study which appeared in the online journal Current Biology, Paul Shaw remarked that though it was still not clear about the artificial ability to induce this kind of a slumber in human beings, yet the technique could have wide ranging implications for treatment of Alzheimer's.