Cheryl Rock, a member of UCSD Cancer Center, is leading the Women's Healthy Eating and Living study. One of the most important aspects of this study that's not typically done in these types of large studies is that we're actually collecting blood samples from women at the beginning and at specific intervals during the time that they're involved in the study, which is a long time - the average woman in this study will be in it for six years. And then later, when we're at the point of seeing who gets a recurrence and who doesn't, we might actually be able to identify markers that could be later measured. For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin. This is Science Today.
Sleep deprivation is a common occurrence in today's busy society.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego are using a technique called functional resonance imaging, to find out. Dr. Greg Brown, a professor of psychiatry, who conducted the experiments, says there were some surprising findings. We found that all regions in the anterior portion of the brain were that active when subjects were well-rested, remain active when they were sleep deprived and some additional areas of the anterior brain region also became active with memorizing. Although sleep deprivation has many adverse effects, these findings suggest the brain has an adaptive resource that kicks in during times of stress - such as lack of sleep. The ultimate goal would be to understand the limits of this adaption.