The Brain Cells Behind Insomnia

Specific cell types involved in insomnia “Our study shows that insomnia, like so many other neuropsychiatric disorders, is influenced by 100’s of genes, each of small effect. These genes by themselves are not that interesting to look at. What counts is their combined effect on the risk of insomnia. We investigated that with a new method, which enabled us to identify specific types of brain cells, like the so-called medium spiny neurons.” says Danielle Posthuma. “These findings are a breakthrough, since we can now for the first time start searching for underlying mechanisms in individual brain cells in the laboratory” says Guus Smit, a VU-University neurobiologist involved in the study. Postgraduate student Philip Jansen, first author of the paper, continues: “It is fascinating that we can nowadays start to understand what happens at the micro-level of molecules and cells in the brain, just because we can assemble so many data at the macro-level, worldwide”. Insomnia is genetically more related to psychiatric disorders than to other sleep traits The researchers compared risk genes of insomnia with those of other traits and disorders. Surprisingly, they found little overlap with genes involved in individual differences in other sleep traits, like being a morning- or evening-type. Instead there was a strong genetic similarity with depression and anxiety. “A very important finding, because we have always searched for causes of insomnia in the brain circuits that regulate sleep. We have to shift our attention to the circuits that regulate emotion, stress and tension. Our first results in that direction are already spectacular”, says Van Someren. “This study is an immense step forward in understanding the genetic background of insomnia. The findings underline that insomnia is a serious condition, because of the shared genetic risk of psychiatric disorders metabolic disturbances involved in obesity and diabetes”, states Vladimir Vacic, Senior Scientist in Computational Biology at 23andMe. https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/the-brain-cells-behind-insomnia-315914?utm_campaign=NEWSLETTER_TN_Breaking%20Science%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=70251087&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_QTWfrWAULAmu14WUaY_H_uYcl-zpY_7KDNieUr06U_SPfK5fApwbijxHQvMdh2F4ceN0_qSYFvCAyTHVHbH1XGmoGCA&_hsmi=70251087