Posts Tagged: Sleep
Waking Up To Sleep
Waking Up To Sleep is a complete conference on sleep held for The Science Network in February 2007. 
List of speakers includes:
Charles Czeisler, Luis De Lecea, David Dinges, Mark Eric Dyken, Ralph Greenspan, Daniel Kripke, Philip Low, Sara Mednick, Allan Pack, Satchin Panda, Terrence Sejnowski, Paul Shaw, Jerry Siegel, Robert Stickgold, Giulio Tononi, Roger Bingham.
All talks are available online, for a total of about 10 hours of high profile scientific sleep insights.
pySolo: a complete suite for sleep analysis in Drosophila
Bioinformatics. 2009 Jun 1; 25: 1466-1467
pySolo: a complete suite for sleep analysis in Drosophila
Giorgio F. Gilestro, Chiara CirellipySolo is a multi-platform software for analysis of sleep and locomotor activity in Drosophila melanogaster. pySolo provides a user-friendly graphic interface and it has been developed with the specific aim of being accessible, portable, fast and easily expandable through an intuitive plug-in structure. Support for development of additional plug-ins is provided through a community website.
Availability: Software and documentation are located at http://www.pysolo.net. pySolo is a free software and the entire project is leased under the GNU General Public License.
Widespread Changes in Synaptic Markers as a Function of Sleep and Wakefulness in Drosophila
Science. 2009 Apr 3;324(5923):109-12
Widespread Changes in Synaptic Markers as a Function of Sleep and Wakefulness in Drosophila
Gilestro GF, Tononi G, Cirelli CSleep is universal, strictly regulated, and necessary for cognition. Why this is so remains a mystery, though recent work suggests a link between sleep, memory, and plasticity. However, little is known about how wakefulness and sleep affect synapses. Using Western blots and confocal microscopy in Drosophila, we found that protein levels of key components of central synapses were high after waking and low after sleep. These changes were related to behavioral state rather than time of day and occurred in all major areas of the Drosophila brain. The decrease of synaptic markers during sleep was progressive and sleep was necessary for their decline. Thus, sleep may be involved in maintaining synaptic homeostasis altered by waking activities.
