UCLA

Poor sleep is an unfortunate hallmark of modern life, with diverse consequences for the individual and society. Sleep loss is associated with metabolic, immunological and cognitive consequences, with chronic sleep loss believed to reduce life and health span and increase the risk of several chronic complex disorders. In Chapter 1, I discuss classical behavioral markers of sleep pressure and engage in the investigation of two specific cortical oscillations using polysomnography in mice. Several studies demonstrate that low frequency high amplitude cortical oscillations (0.5-4.0Hz, slow wave activity) are a useful biomarker for underlying sleep need/pressure. Recent work suggests that sub-classes of waveforms, slow oscillations (SOs) and delta waves (DWs), within the parameter range of slow wave activity may have distinct roles in sleep-dependent learning and forgetting in rats. We implanted wild type C57BL/6J mice (n=44) with polysomnographic implants for recording of sleep and arousal behavior. Here I demonstrate that SOs and DWs have significantly different temporal dynamics in undisturbed animals and in the response to the acute homeostatic challenge of sleep deprivation by gentle handling. In Chapter 2, I test the ability of a putative novel hypnotic to alter sleep and the recovery from sleep loss in mice. Hydrogen is an abundant chemical substance that has recently shown promise as a diverse-acting biological signaling molecule with the capacity to influence metabolism, immunity and cognition, as well as known sleep regulatory regions. We hypothesized that the ability of hydrogen-rich water (HRW) to alter sleep processes and behaviors may be a result of its ability to alter sleep itself. We implanted wild type C57BL/6J mice (n=10) with polysomnographic implants for recording of sleep and arousal behavior tested the ability to ad libitum access to HRW to influence several well-established behavioral and electrophysiological sleep phenotypes. We report here that HRW is sufficient to alter several behavioral markers of sleep pressure, but not slow wave activity, in adult mice.