Recipe for Sleep

Neuroscientist Chiara Cirelli: Uncovering Sleep

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Chiara Cirelli Studies Shuteye

Neuroscientist Cirelli wants to find a recipe for sound sleep.

Sleep

• Is necessary for all animals

• Varies among animals

• Is a powerful restorative

Question:

In what phase of sleep do humans dream?

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Answer: REM

REM = Rapid Eye Movement

• Fast

• Short

• Narrowly spaced

• Sometimes quite similar to brain waves of wakefulness

During the REM phase of sleep, brain waves are

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Why Do We Sleep?

What some scientists suspect

What Cirelli suspects

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Cirelli's Synaptic-Strength Hypothesis

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Testing Cirelli's Hypothesis

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Fruit Flies Are Model Organisms

Drosophila melanogaster

(fruit fly)

Fruit flies are perfect tools for studying heredity, or genetics.

Cirelli uses fruit flies to study genes that affect sleep.

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Sleep Genes and Fruit Flies

• Fruit flies have a lifespan of a few months, and female fruit flies lay eggs every day

• Fruit flies sleep about 12 hours every night

• Scientists know almost all the genes for about a dozen species of fruit flies

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Sleepless in Madison

Previously, Cirelli would awaken sleeping fruit flies by shaking the test tubes where they ate and slept.

Now, Cirelli uses a robotic arm that tilts and drops a frame containing the test tubes of sleeping fruit flies, jolting them awake.

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Cirelli Discovers Minisleeper Flies

• Minisleeper flies have a genetic mutation that allows them to function on less sleep than normal flies

• Minisleeper flies also have "shaker" gene mutation

• Humans have a similar gene and protein

• Problem: minisleeper flies don't live as long as sleepier ones

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Research Applications

How might Cirelli's work with fruit fly genes eventually help humans sleep better, and what is the "fly in the ointment" of such an application?