Posted on 08/08/2005 3:50:05 PM PDT by BenLurkin
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People who die in their sleep may stop breathing because they have lost too many brain cells, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.
Sleep apnea -- a condition in which people stop breathing for long stretches of time in their sleep -- may sometimes be caused by the destruction of cells in the brain stem, where autonomic functions such as breathing are controlled, they said.
Tests on rats showed that the loss of key brain stem cells that die off with age caused such disrupted sleep that the animals eventually stopped breathing completely.
The same thing may be happening in elderly people, said neurobiologist Jack Feldman of the University of California Los Angeles.
"We wanted to reveal the mechanism behind central sleep apnea, which most commonly affects people after age 65," Feldman said in a statement.
"Unlike obstructive sleep apnea, in which a person stops breathing when their airway collapses, central sleep apnea is triggered by something going awry in the brain's breathing center."
Writing in this week's issue of Nature Neuroscience, Feldman and colleagues said they deliberately killed brain cells in the pre-Boetzinger complex of the brains of rats -- a region believed to be the "command post" for breathing in mammals.
Then they monitored the rats' breathing.
"We were surprised to see that breathing completely stopped when the rat entered REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, forcing the rat to wake up in order to start breathing again," said Leanne McKay, who worked on the study.
"Over time, the breathing lapses increased in severity, spreading into non-REM sleep and eventually occurring when the rats were awake, as well."
Feldman believes the same thing could be happening in elderly people, especially those with degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's, which are marked by disturbed sleep.
"Our research suggests that the pre-Boetzinger complex contains a fixed number of neurons that we lose as we age," Feldman said.
"We speculate that our brains can compensate for up to a 60 percent loss of pre-Boetzinger cells, but the cumulative deficit of these brain cells eventually disrupts our breathing during sleep. There's no biological reason for the body to maintain these cells beyond the average lifespan, and so they do not replenish as we age," said Feldman.
"As we lose them, we grow more prone to central sleep apnea."
And weaker people may not be able to rouse themselves when this happens. They simply stop breathing.
I'm doomed.
I'm going to die of boredom from watching late night TV long before sleep apnea gets me. . .
Although in my case the sleep apnea may be a result of my wife sticking a sock in my mouth because of my snoring.
Reggie White...RIP
So am I---I'm 83. Oh well, I easily could have died 20 years ago.
Cheers!
Here I was thinking that dying in ones sleep was related to stoppage of the heart.
All dying is related to "stoppage" of the heart. Right?
No problem, just FReep through the night and don't bother with mundane things like sleeping.
While I'm very glad that many people in my family have sleep apnea and are being treated for it...this report strikes me as having a bit of a duh quality to it.
Then why are there still so many Democrats around?
EXACTLY! For those who haven't worked at a newspaper or other news medium, the headlines are usually not written by the reporter but are selected by editors who must select words based on the column width, height, etc. I always told my editors that substance was more important than style, but that's not common.
How did I make it through college?
But if you spend THOUSANDS on having a sleep study done on yourself and then pay THOUSANDS more for hardware you can put on before going to sleep....you will be saved and later meet your end getting hit by a crosstown bus or something. I will take my chances on dying in my sleep
Bye Bye...
And the doc stands over me and tells my survivors...
"I'm sorry...but he was just too dumb to live..."
Note this interesting part:
We were surprised to see that breathing completely stopped when the rat entered REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, forcing the rat to wake up in order to start breathing again," said Leanne McKay, who worked on the study.
"Over time, the breathing lapses increased in severity, spreading into non-REM sleep and eventually occurring when the rats were awake, as well."
Sleep studies and CPAPs aren't that expensive nowadays. You should check it out if you haven't done so recently.
My CPAP was $600.00 and has been worth every penny. It worked just as well overseas as it does here, and I use it every night.
How many of you fellow snorers still have your tonsils? There has been some research into apnea being worsened (or caused) by swollen tonsils. Just something I read somewhere a few months ago...
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