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| BBC NEWS Wednesday, 26 April, 2000, 17:59 GMT
18:59 UK 'Hormonal battle' controls sleep The reasons
why people sleep - or stay awake - have been uncovered by research,
claim scientists. A hormonal battle dictates when we fall asleep
or wake up, according to scientists who established which part
of the brain is responsible for a good night's sleep. A joint
French and Swiss research team say cells in the brain region called
the ventrolateral preoptic nucleus (VLPO) holds the key to our
waking and sleeping patterns. Their research, conducted on rats,
shows triangular-shaped cells in the VLPO are inhibited by hormones
such as noradrenaline and serotonin when we are awake. We then
fall asleep because the VLPO cells are switched on by darkness,
alcohol, warmer temperatures and other factors, they say. In a
burst of activity, the VLPO cells stop other parts of the brain
releasing "wakeful" hormones. As a result, more VLPO cells - neurons
- become active, winning the war of the hormones and causing sleep.
Full text: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_726000/726790.stm
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