Article:Brain Can Learn to Overcome Sleep Apnea

[SnoozyQ]

Brain Can Learn to Overcome Sleep Apnea
By University of Toronto
Feb 1, 2011 - 10:31:47 AM

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - TORONTO, ON – New research from the University of Toronto could provide some restful nights for the 18 million North Americans who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea.

In a recent study that appeared in the Journal of Neuroscience, scientists from the University demonstrated that repeated obstruction of the airways requires release of the brain chemical noradrenaline. The release of this chemical helps the brain learn to breathe more effectively and purposefully.

“What we showed is that repeated disruption of normal lung activity – what happens during sleep apnea – triggers a form of learning that helps you breathe better. This type of brain plasticity could be harnessed to help overcome the breathing insufficiency that typifies sleep apnea” says Dr. John Peever, Associate Professor of neuroscience and lead author of the study.

In order to mimic the experience of severe sleep apnea, the scientists induced short 15-second apneas in sedated rats by repeatedly restricting airflow into the lungs. They found repeated apneas caused the brain to progressively trigger more forceful contraction of the respiratory muscles, which caused an increase in breathing. This increase in breathing lasted for over an hour.

Peever says it seems the brain is using the unwanted side-effects of sleep apnea to help it learn to prevent future apneas by increasing the depth of breathing.

This study also pinpointed the brain chemical that allows this type of plasticity to occur. They found that noradrenaline is required in the case of repeated apneas to cause brain plasticity and enhance breathing.

These findings are important because they suggest that artificial manipulation with common drugs that affect noradrenaline levels in the brain could also help improve breathing in patients suffering from sleep apnea. This work could serve as the potential basis for developing the long sought after pill for sleep apnea.

[Slinky]

I don't know .... that "..adrenaline" part of noradrenaline is what bothers me about this.

[snnnark]

............ they can't be serious

Noradrenaline which plays a part in the fight or flight response http://www.daviddarling.info/encycloped ... aline.html is probably what most of us have had an abundance of, in our OSA careers. And they want to give us more!!!!!

I dunno, I must be missing something here!

Maybe if I was a rat being choked by a scientist.....

[gurp13]

A brief scan if Wikipedia's article on noradrenaline shows that it's a hormone that increases blood pressure and heart rate as part of a flight or flight response triggered by a stressful event. Also it says that the hormone results in arousal and wakefulness.

This sounds like the problem, not the solution.

[xenablue]

My heart sure doesn't need more anxiety, I'll live with the machine thanks LOL.

xena

[needzzzzs]

I saw this today, too. Since this is only an animal study, it's very premature to suggest that it's going to work in people, I think. Guess we'll be sticking with our machines for a while yet.

Debbie

[snnnark]

Instead of working on something to make us breathe deeper, they should be working on an inhaler that once puffed, chemicals cause the airway muscles to tighten thus keeping the airway open. That would be a treatment!

[DreamLady]

I'm not buying it. You couldn't convince me in a million years that this would work. What good does it do if it decreases apneas by causing arousal? My problem was that my brain NEVER allowed me to progress to stage 3 - not once in a 7 hour sleep study. That sleep study was pretty typical for a 'normal' night for me pre-cpap. My brain had 'learned' way too well how to keep me alive, but I still snored constantly, and was getting no restorative sleep.

This is typical of western medicine. Never mind that there is a therapy that WORKS, that has few (in most people) negative systemic effects, that could be further improved with a bit more tweaking and research into better-fitting masks, we must have a pill that affects people systemically! It's the American way, after all.

[BlackSpinner]

Boy, talk about missing the boat! This is exactly what you DON'T want to happen while you sleep! This is why lots of us had high blood pressure before we used cpap!

[SnoozyQ]

Yeah, I was a little stumped by their positive spin.

Its like saying I found a way to make a broken leg painless...by chopping off your leg.

[roster]

Yeah, I was a little stumped ...by chopping off your leg.

The article makes no sense to me either.

I also don't buy that "more forceful use of the respiratory muscles" prevents apneas.

[M.D.Hosehead]

Makes no sense.

If it worked that way, no one would have sleep apnea.

Why do I smell a pharmaceutical company?

[Lizistired]

I don't want to take a pill. That's why I got a sleep study. Maybe they are talking about "central apneas".

[SleepingUgly]

These findings are important because they suggest that artificial manipulation with common drugs that affect noradrenaline levels in the brain could also help improve breathing in patients suffering from sleep apnea. This work could serve as the potential basis for developing the long sought after pill for sleep apnea.

Actually...Doesn't this research help explain why antidepressants that block reuptake of norepinephrine improve upper airway patency?

[Raj]

The implications are interesting. If this research is correct, apnea provides its own cure. So evidently most of us are cured by now and can dispense with our unneeded machines. Anyone buying this idea?

I just wanted to add that for those few of us who didn't suffer from a long period of XPAP-less OA, the machines are clearly preventing a cure. You may read that in a sarcastic tone.