FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF SLEEP HOMEOSTASIS IN DROSOPHILA

描述（由申请人提供）：长时间的清醒导致人类、大鼠和苍蝇的认知障碍。睡眠稳态，即在睡眠丧失后观察到的睡眠增加，被认为可以通过恢复在睡眠剥夺期间退化的重要生物过程来抵消长时间清醒的负面影响。不幸的是，究竟哪些进程需要恢复仍然是一个猜测和辩论的问题。鉴于睡眠障碍越来越多地被认为是导致神经系统疾病患者认知障碍的原因，识别在清醒期间退化并在睡眠期间恢复的通路可能会增强我们在健康和疾病期间理解神经元过程的能力。我们发现，睡眠不足导致的短期记忆缺陷可以在睡眠剥夺期间逆转，只有在一整晚的睡眠后才能观察到。具体地说，短期记忆的功能恢复可以通过改变单个神经元结构来实现。考虑到这一点，我们将评估睡眠不足对短期记忆的获得和训练后睡眠剥夺后巩固长期记忆（LTM）的能力的作用。我们假设，在睡眠剥夺期间防止短期记忆下降和/或在训练后睡眠剥夺后保持巩固长期记忆LTM的能力的基因是在睡眠恢复中发挥作用的强有力的候选者。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Extended periods of waking result in cognitive impairments in humans, rats, and flies. Sleep homeostasis, the increase in sleep observed following sleep loss, is believed to counter the negative effects of prolonged waking by restoring vital biological processes that are degraded during sleep deprivation. Unfortunately, precisely which processes need restoration remains a matter of speculation and debate. Given that sleep disturbances are increasingly recognized as contributing to cognitive impairment in patients with neurological disorders, identifying pathways that are degraded during waking and restored during sleep may enhance our ability to understand neuronal processes during both health and disease. We have found that short-term memory deficits resulting from sleep loss can be reversed during sleep deprivation to a level only observed following a full night's sleep. Specifically, functional restoration of short-term memory can be achieved in an otherwise wake, behaving animal by altering a single neuronal structure. With that in mind, we will evaluate the role of sleep loss on both the acquisition of short-term memory and the ability to consolidate long-term memories (LTM) after post-training sleep deprivation. We hypothesize that genes that prevent declines in short-term memory during sleep deprivation and/or preserve the ability to consolidate long-term memories LTM after post- training sleep deprivation are strong candidates for playing a role in sleep restoration.