PARIS: If you've ever mislaid your keys or glasses and blamed this on being daft or forgetful, you may be doing yourself a disservice: you may be a bit short of sleep, that's all. So suggests a study on rats, which says that if a brain is tired, parts of it can fall asleep for a fraction of a second, even though the organ is ostensibly awake at the time. The implications are far-reaching, especially for people doing tasks where lack of sleep could be dangerous, say its authors. The investigation challenges conventional belief that sleep deprivation affects the entire brain. Researchers inserted ultra-fine probes into the brains of 11 adult rats to monitor electrical activity in sub-groups of neurons in the motor cortex, which is in charge of semi-automatic “motor” movements.
