Sleep deprivation has been big news lately, ever since a study went viral that showed sleep deprivation can cause permanent damage in the brains of mice. As someone who doesn't sleep all that much and who knows a lot of other people who I can reach just about 24/7 this has attracted my attention.
My criticisms of this study: 1) These are mice, not just that, these are horribly deformed and inbred mice that are produced to have no fear of human beings AND to be genetically identical. 2) For further evidence, Michael Jackson was reported to sleep no more than 3 hours per night and, last I checked, the King of Pop was doing just fine.
A new study takes aim at these observations using proteomics. Mice were forced to stay awake, their sleepy little brains were extracted, the neurons were enriched on a density gradient, and proteomics looked at the differences. Unfortunately, the results are a little underwhelming. They found 80 proteins or so that were differentially regulated (1.5-fold) and the DAVID and IPA analysis was a little inconclusive. The paper hints that further analysis is in works and that we'll know a lot more when they wrap up the next paper. However, if you are interested in looking at neurons via proteomics, this paper has a nice and concise method.
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