Elimination of Sleep.

Orexin has potential to become a lifechanging drug for narcoleptics. It could also alter all our lifestyles. Orexin, it seems, plays a vital role in waking us up. Without it we would be naturally asleep all the time. At night, your body clock stops the hypothalamus producing the neurochemical and we go to sleep. Could an orexin drug keep us awake all the time, without side effects?

The US Army is interested in the potential . Its pilots currently make use of amphetamine drugs to help them combat tiredness. Yet it is hard to think of an environment in which the drugs' downsides -twitchiness, panic attacks - could be more risky. Any drug that was able naturally to boost alertness would be a vast improvement for them. The 'voluntary' use of amphetamines by US Air Force pilots was raised as a factor in the friendly fire deaths of four Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan in April 2002.

It could be equally applicable for all of us as we increasingly move towards a round-the-clock society. Shiftworkers may one day benefit from drugs to ease their bodyclocks into alternative sleep patterns. The fear is that we could be starting down the road to a world of relentless pressure.

Although no one knows for sure why we sleep, there are a number of theories. Sleep may have evolved to protect animals from their predators by reducing their activity during the times when they are most vulnerable.


Research has shown that REM and NREM sleep may serve specific biological functions. Sleep deprivation studies reveal that humans and other animals respond to sleep loss in the same way. When study subjects are deprived of REM sleep, they tend to spend longer periods in REM sleep during their next sleeping period to make up for the loss. REM sleep after deprivation is more intense, with more eye movements per minute than in normal REM sleep. Similarly, subjects deprived of NREM sleep usually spend more time in NREM sleep afterward. EEGs measuring brain activity show that this rebound NREM sleep also differs from normal NREM sleep. This research suggests that the body needs adequate levels of both REM and NREM sleep. This conclusion has led many sleep researchers to believe that the two kinds of sleep serve different biological purposes, although the exact functions remain unclear.


The relationship between maturity at birth and REM sleep suggests that REM sleep plays a role in the development of the brain. REM sleep may have a related function later in life as well. However, that function remains a mystery.