Another biological necessity for sleep indicates a tool for brain health

A fascinating study was just published in The Journal of Neuroscience that demonstrates one of the elusive biological necessities for sleep. The authors set the stage by noting:

"Although many theories of function, indirect evidence, and even common sense suggest sleep is needed for an increase in brain energy, brain energy levels have not been directly measured with modern technology."

They demonstrate for the first time that brains regions active only during the waking state, while asleep, produce a surge in the production of ATP (the body's cellular 'energy currency').

"We here report that ATP levels, the energy currency of brain cells, show a surge in the initial hours of spontaneous sleep in wake-active but not in sleep-active brain regions of rat. The surge is dependent on sleep but not time of day...A significant positive correlation was observed between the surge in ATP and EEG non-rapid eye movement delta activity (0.5–4.5 Hz) during spontaneous sleep...these observations suggest that the surge in ATP occurs when the neuronal activity is reduced, as occurs during sleep."

This has profound implications for brain health and the capacity for neurons to regulate their threshold of excitability and do neuronal work. Cognition, mood, the subjective experience of energy and fatigue, and every function regulated by the brain depend on the ability of the brain cells to produce ATP. Besides the importance of attaining spontaneous (natural) deep delta wave sleep for ATP production, it also implies that deficiencies of the precursors and cofactors for brain ATP production can be a cause of waking up fatigued and degradation of brain function. This is good news in that we have the resources to restore them.