Science: new research reveals why some people sleep less but are still in high spirits

October 22, 2019 news / Bio Valley bio on / - -- for many people, getting enough sleep is a challenge, but some people called "short sleepers" can only sleep four to six hours a day, which has no negative impact on their memory In a new study, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, found that a variant of the npsr1 gene may lead to shorter natural human sleep times and appear to reduce sleep needs in mice Relevant research results were published in the Journal of Science Translational Medicine on October 16, 2019 The title of the paper is "mutant neuroseptide s receiver reduces sleep duration with preserved memory consolidation" The picture is from cc0 public domain Led by Louis Pt á CEK and Ying Hui Fu of the University of California, San Francisco, the researchers identified mutations in the npsr1 gene in two people from a family of short sleepers Npsr1 encodes a receptor that binds to neuropeptide s Neuropeptide S is found in the brain and is involved in regulating sleep Later, they developed mice with the same npsr1 mutation and found that compared with wild-type mice, these mice slept less and had more activity, but although they slept less, their performance in memory tests did not fall behind These "short sleep" mice showed a decrease in both REM and non REM stages People with the npsr1 mutation tend to have 2 to 4 hours less sleep than the average, while mice with the npsr1 mutation have 71 minutes less sleep "Mouse sleep is more fragmented than human sleep and is not as concentrated as human sleep," the authors wrote in their paper These differences are likely due to different sleep regulation mechanisms between humans and mice, which may be the reason why the same gene mutation leads to different phenotypes " (bio.com) reference: 1.lijuan Xing et al Mutant neuropeptide S receiver reduces sleep duration with preserved memory consolidation Science Translational Medicine, 2016, doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.aax2014 2.NPSR1 Variant Linked to Less Sleep in People: Study https://