title: Sleep deprivation impairs long-term potentiation in rat hippocampal slices.
abstract: To determine if 12-h sleep deprivation disrupts neural plasticity, we compared long-term potentiation (LTP) in five sleep-deprived and five control rats. Thirty minutes after tetanus population spike amplitude increased 101 +/- 15% in 16 slices from sleep deprived rats and 139 +/- 14% in 14 slices from control rats. This significant (P < 0.05) reduction of LTP, the first demonstration that the sleep deprivation protocol impairs plasticity in adult rats, may be due to several factors. Reduced LTP may indicate that sleep provides a period of recuperation for cellular processes underlying neural plasticity. Alternatively, the stress of sleep deprivation, as indicated by elevated blood corticosterone levels, or other non-sleep-specific factors of deprivation may contribute to the LTP reduction.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of California, Davis, 95616, USA. igcampbell@ucdavis.edu
authors.forename: I G
authors.initials: IG
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Guinan
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Horowitz
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003345:Corticosterone / Q000032:analysis / Q000502:physiology; D004594:Electrophysiology; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology*; D017774:Long-Term Potentiation / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012892:Sleep Deprivation; D009435:Synaptic Transmission
chemical_list: D003345:Corticosterone