Many adolescents and young adults harbor a desire to skip sleep in favor of getting more from daily life. Now new research from Wake Forest University School of Medicine has revealed this desire may not be far from the realm of possibility. A naturally occurring brain peptide, orexin-A, has been shown to reverse the effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance in monkeys. Researchers believe these findings may hold potential for patients suffering from sleep disorders and for shift workers, military personnel, and other occupations where sleep is limited, but cognitive demand is high.

Orexin-A, or hypocretin-1, is a naturally occurring neuropeptide with the function of regulating sleep. It is secreted by a small number or neurons, but affects many brain regions during the day. People who have normal amounts of orexin-A are able to maintain wakefulness. When people or animals are sleep-deprived, the brain attempts to produce more orexin-A but often not enough to achieve alertness past the normal daily cycle.

During the study, monkeys were kept awake for 30-36 hours until the normal testing time the next day. They then performed their trained tasks with several cognitive problems that varied in difficulty. Researchers observed their performance to be significantly impaired. However, when the sleep deprived monkeys were administered orexin-A either intravenously or through a nasal spray immediately before testing, their cognitive skills improved to normal levels. Researchers also observed that orexin-a, at moderate dose levels, had no effect on performance if the animals were not sleep-deprived. It is unclear how this peptide spray would effect someone suffering from extreme sleep deprivation. Many observations over the years have shown that is not safe to deprive the body of sleep over time.

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