睡眠不足时,大脑会开始吃自己

If you're tossing and turning every night, there's some bad news. Your brain could be in big trouble!

如果你每晚都辗转反侧，要告诉你一个坏消息，你的大脑要有大麻烦了！

And you thought getting your recommended seven to nine hours of zzz’s was the only thing you needed to worry about. Turns out, there are some pretty scary side effects to sleep loss, all around. (By the way, getting too much sleep could be bad for your health, too.)

你以为睡够建议的7-9小时是唯一需要担心的，事实是，睡眠不足有超级可怕的副作用，而且涉及方方面面。（顺便说一下，睡太多对你的健康也有害）。

A study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, investigated how the brain responds to bad sleep habits using lab mice.

《神经科学杂志》发表的一篇研究用实验室老鼠研究了睡眠习惯不好时大脑的反应。

Their surprising discovery revealed that not getting enough deep sleep, along with not sleeping at all, can literally cause your brain to start eating itself. No kidding!

惊人的发现揭示了深度睡眠不足和不睡觉其实会导致大脑开始吃掉自己。真不是开玩笑！

The team of researchers, led by neuroscientist Michele Bellesi from the Marche Polytechnic University in Italy, divided the mice into four groups.

来自意大利马尔凯理工大学的神经系统科学家Michele Bellesi带领的研究团队把老鼠分成了4组。

While the well-rested group slept for six to eight hours, another was periodically woken up from sleep, the third group was kept awake for an extra eight hours, and a final group remained chronically sleep-deprived, staying awake for five days straight.

睡眠充足的一组睡6-8小时，另外一组会定期从睡梦中被叫醒，第三组被强制多清醒8小时，最后一组长期剥夺睡眠，连续清醒5天。

When the researchers compared brain activity across the four groups, they noted something odd. The neurons of both the well-rested and sleep-deprived groups continued the same healthy brain-cleaning activity that always happens when we sleep. But the brains of the sleep-deprived mice went into overdrive and began harming themselves, too.

研究人员对比4组老鼠的大脑活动时有了奇怪的发现。休息好的和剥夺睡眠的两组神经元都在进行相同的睡眠期间总会进行的大脑健康清理活动，但剥夺睡眠的老鼠大脑会超负荷工作，并开始自我伤害。

Sound crazy? As we sleep, our brains do more than replenish our energy; they also clear away the toxic byproducts of neural activity from the day.

听起来很疯狂吧？睡觉时我们的大脑不光是在养精蓄锐，也在清理这一天神经活动产生的毒素。

While we’ve known that this process occurs when we get a good night’s sleep, apparently the same thing can happen when we lose sleep, too.

我们已经知道了晚上睡眠充足时会进行这一过程，显然在睡眠不足时也会如此。

But because of the lack of shut-eye, the brain goes a bit overboard with its cleaning—hence its terrifying self-eating habit.

但因为缺乏睡眠，大脑就会过度清理，因此就产生了可怕的自我吞噬习惯。

We have only one conclusion. In the name of your brain’s health, you have a pretty good reason to hit the hay an hour earlier tonight.

我们只有一个结论：为了大脑的健康，你今晚有理由提前一小时睡觉。