Drug Reverses Effects of Sleep Deprivation

Ryan O'Rourke writes "According to a study led by Dr. Sam A. Deadwyler and published by the Public Library of Science Biology, a new drug called CX717 developed by Cortex Pharmaceuticals has been shown to reverse the biological and behavioral effects of sleep deprivation. Tests performed on monkeys that were subjected to 30-36 hours of sleep deprivation revealed an average test performance accuracy drop to 63 percent, but that performance was restored to 84 percent after administering CX717. During normal alert conditions, performance accuracy of the animals was improved from an average of 75 percent to 90 percent after an injection of CX717. It is also believed the drug may help prevent or restore memory loss in Alzheimer's patients."

Comments

Don't ignore the signals.

[Poromenos1]

I don't like this. Sleep deprivation effects are there for a reason, to signal that you need to sleep. I can understand if people who can't sleep and need to be alert need to use this (e.g. soldiers in combat), but it's not going to be very good for the average person who needs to do some more work. People need to sleep for various reasons (rest, various chemicals get regenerated, etc). It's not a whim of nature.

Re:Don't ignore the signals.

[Chicane-UK]

Exactly the same sort of post I was going to make.

The body tell us its tired for a reason - it needs good healthy sleep, in order to keep you all in check. People who avoid sleep, people who keep themselves awake with drugs, people who burn the candle at both ends.. they are just setting themselves up for premature death. Just go to sleep!

As Kramer once said in an episode of Seinfeld.. "Well.. I don't argue with the body Jerry. It's an argument you can't win!"

Its a comment I whole heartedly agree with! :)

Re:Don't ignore the signals.

[An Onerous Coward]

Two words: Vi. Oxx.

We live in a shamelessly corporate age, and you simply cannot trust that the drugs the FDA approves are actually safe. IANAD(octor), but my advice would to take only those drugs which you absolutely need, and give new drugs five or six years on the market unless the benefits are just too important to pass up. Somehow, I don't consider "eliminating sleep from my life" to be a medical necessity.

Re:Don't ignore the signals.

[SatanicPuppy]

During the period when I was abusing my body to the limit, I could go three or four days with about 8 hours of sleep. And then I'd crash and LOSE A DAY...i.e. pass out around 3pm on friday and wake up sunday morning at 4:00am. I remember falling asleep in my car, right in front of my apartment, because I was too tired to walk up the stairs.

Passed out once, and my roomate had 5 guys over working on a CS project and it didn't wake me up until 10:30 at night. They'd been there since about 11:00 and I'd been there, asleep, since the night before. And when I say "roommate" I mean we shared a ROOM. I scared the hell out of him when I woke up because they'd thought the big bump in my bed was just a continuation of all the crap piled on top of it. I got up, ate dinner, went right back to sleep.

I'm still paying for that crap, ten years later. It's totally not worth it.

Re:Don't ignore the signals.

[tremor_tj]

Why?

Take a look around you. People STILL do stupid things, like jump skateboards down stairs, riding rails, etc...

If you could simply turn off the pain receptor, you're turning off what is essentially a survival mechanism. In this case, the recurring pain is a constant lesson to not do that again. If Joe Skateboarder can just turn off the pain any time he gets hurt, what's to stop him from trying to ride the edge of a building that's three stories tall? Only death is an unacceptable injury then.

Heart attack in a pill

[bigwavejas]

Sleep is critical for muscles/ organs to rebuild themselves. If I were Cortex I'd be a bit hesitant to release this drug to the public, without the strictest prescription. Lest they end up like Merck with Vioxx

Slashdot

[saskboy]

If I stopped reading slashdot until 12:00AM that would help with my sleep deprivation, without the use of drugs.

I have a feeling most other computer users would find the same benefits from turning off their computers at 10:00PM.

Re:Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the problem is that not enough computer geeks have a woman or man to keep them interested in going to bed on time.

In the future...

[lxs]

...we'll all be working 36 hour shifts.

Re:In the future...

[rhvarona]

You mean like interns at hospitals have been doing for pretty much forever? Gotta tell my intern friend that she is a time traveler.

Is the trademarked name going to be

[joeflies]

Methamphetamine?

Soon to follow: beverages

[I_am_Rambi]

Watch, coffee and pop will soon have versions of with this drug and without this drug. Soon the human race will become dependant on this just as we are on caffinee.

Interesting...

[ovit]

I read somewhere that a significant biologic reason for sleep was simply that animals who laid down in a dark place for half the time had an evolutionary advantage over thos who didn't (it's about 50% harder to be eaten by a predator if 50% of your time your asleep)...

Rather than do the usual slashdot "Science is EViL" thing, why not really think about the potential here...

Yes, they will probably discover that over use of this has some serious side effect, but all that means is that it shouldn't be over used... It does not mean that we all need to run an hide...

For being a site full of geeks this place is remarkably anti science sometimes...

Re:Interesting...

[An Onerous Coward]

You read wrong. The problem is, there is a direct, linear correlation between body size and amount of time spent sleeping, that has nothing to do with whether one is predator or prey. For example, mice spend the vast majority of their time asleep, while cats spend a good 75% of their time asleep. When you get up to human sized creatures, you expect to see them spend about a third of their life asleep. Elephants sleep about four hours a night. What they do with all those long, dark hours is anybody's guess.

The question of why we sleep is still a bit of a mystery to me, but if you're simply looking at it as "defense from predators", you're going to fundamentally misunderstand the phenomenon.

Re:Interesting...

[rkcallaghan]

Rather than do the usual slashdot "Science is EViL" thing, why not really think about the potential here...

I'm pretty sure you got modded up just because you insulted Slashdot, which is so ironic it's stupid.

Not only is Slashdot usually quite excited about new scientific discoveries, at the time of your post there is only one overarcing concern among the other posts -- That the drug if successful would lead to futher destruction of our already overworked lives. This isn't "Science is EViL" it's "Corporations are EViL, and pointing the starvation gun at our heads already saying 'WORK more!' ".

~Rebecca

PS-- For futher irony, mod me up for insulting a mod.

side-effects

[genckas]

Drugs like this end up messing up more than helping. A drug that can alter your normal biological functions (tiredness) and turn you more active cannot have good effects. You need sleep, simple as that. Maybe work should become more efficient instead of keeping people awake (or monkeys).

Misleading summary, article

[Red Flayer]

Revision: "reverse [some of] the biological and behavioral effects of sleep deprivation"

This drug also increased test performance in the control group. The increase in test performance was slightly more pronounced in the sleep-deprived group.

Caffeine would likely show similar results, as would nasal decongestants and stimulant diet pills (both of which are amphetamines).

Hell, for that matter, I bet crystal meth, in low doses, would produce the same effect.

Meh, wake me up when the real fix for sleep deprivation is discovered... oh, wait...

Re:Coming soon...

[tumanov]

I think we should all be focusing on being able to work better instead of being able to work longer. I've been doing a lot of introspective thinking about how much I work vs. how much actually gets done. And really its only the last 4 hours before a deadline that the work gets done - regardless of how many all-nighters were pulled.

So while getting read of sleep deprivation effects might be nice, I really just need a drug that'll push me into the last-mile mindset and get me to actually do the amazing work that gets done under pressure. Caffeine and nicotine just don't cut it anymore.

Heck, like one of the replies to your post mentions, the C in this drug could stand for cocaine and it'd probably have the same effect if it WAS just cocaine, except maybe with the downside of addiction.

I think they just invented meth

[Aqua OS X]

I think they just invented meth.

Re:Coming soon...

[h4rm0ny]

Heck, like one of the replies to your post mentions, the C in this drug could stand for cocaine and it'd probably have the same effect if it WAS just cocaine, except maybe with the downside of addiction.

Except that no-body holds the patent on cocaine so its illegal.

But regarding addiction, at least you can make an argument with cocaine against using it. But this - I can see bosses coming along and expecting employees to just pop one of these in order to pull off a 48 hour overtime to meet a deadline. And you know that some idiot employees will be escalating the standards of company loyalty by using these.

Honestly, we shouldn't be looking at ways of improving our capacity to work. We not only devote more time to work than our ancestors, but 90% of us aren't even working for ourselves. We have modern technology, farming techniques, transport and communication. One person does what would take a hundred a century ago and our hours are going up?

We don't need a pill to help us work harder, we just need to adjust our expectations.

Re:Slep deprvaiton ..

[Mondoz]

How long till WoW vendors start selling this stuff?

Nothing new

[Frangible]

Amphetamines have been around for what, 100 years or so? Dextroamphetamine is the Air Force's "go pill" and is quite effective at keeping someone alert when they should be sleeping.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1462046 8&query_hl=4

While they argue that this drug is different because of possibly less abuse potential (yet have no data to back that assertation up with, such as self-reinforcing studies in animals), I think the real reason is because pharmaceutical patents only last 20 years. As far as abuse potential goes, addiction is usually characterized by increased dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens, of which amphetamine activates indirectly; I have seen no evidence as to whether or not CX717 will indirectly raise dopamine levels in that region of the brain as well.

They may claim they're not stimulants, but the action is that of binding to receptors and releasing a neurotransmitter called glutamate. Is that really so different than stimulants binding to a receptor and releasing norepinephrine, another neurotransmitter?

From the journal article, revealed increased activity in prefrontal cortex, dorsal striatum, and medial temporal lobe (including hippocampus) that was significantly enhanced over normal alert conditions following administration of CX717. You would see similar increases in brain activity following the administration of amphetamine as well.

Furthermore, high levels of glutamate have neurotoxic properties: In excess, glutamate causes neuronal damage and eventual cell death, particularly when NMDA receptors are activated.

Somehow though, I think the combination of a pharmaceutical company making $2.00 in profit per pill combined with possibly less of an abuse potential or political incorrectness of usage will make this drug preferred in spite of whatever risks it carries.

Of course, maybe I'm just bitter and skeptical in my old age.

Re:Coming soon...

[over_exposed]

Don't you think you're exaggerating just a tad? Do you really expect employers to hand out drugs that they require their employees to take? Having a coffee pot in the break room and maybe some sammiches is the closest I've EVER seen (or heard of) to an employer providing (not even requiring) a work enhancing substance to their employees. Even if this drug passes FDA approval, you think it'll be cheap, safe in large quantites, or non-prescription?

The only real "work-place" application I can see for this is extended military missions. People like pilots and snipers could/would use this to great advantage and the miliary is the only organization with enough clout to try to make this mandatory for certain people in their "work force."

Re:Coming soon...

[h4rm0ny]

Don't you think you're exaggerating just a tad? Do you really expect employers to hand out drugs that they require their employees to take?

No, I don't think I'm exagerating, and I'd also expect employees to have to fork out for this from their own pockets. :(

Why do I think my scenario is plausible? Firstly, there is nothing in TFA that suggests that this drug will be a prescription only drug, or in fact anything other than an over-the-counter tablet. Indeed, there would be many complaints if it weren't - "I crashed my car because they wouldn't sell me this at the garage and I fell asleep at the wheel."

Secondly, given it's likely widespread availability, the effect is likely to be one of relegating sleep deprivation to the same level of headaches, et al. Tell many employers that you're taking the day off because of a headache?!?! Unless you get actual migraines, most would expect you to just take some paracetemol if it were really that bad and get on with it. Sleep deprivation is about to become the same. And you know that there will be idiot co-workers who start using this stuff to put in even more hours. And then there will be those who use it to have more late nights without interfering with work the next day. All of which increases its acceptance and leads to that moment when after a 14-hour day and the project still not finished, the use of this stuff is sort of expected.

First it will be the super-star employee who is still fresh when everyone else is starting to type with their noses, then it will be most of the people, then it will be all of them looking at you as you struggle to work saying "Look, why don't you just take one of these? You're letting us down."

I'm happy to be proved wrong on this, but, pending serious side-effects, I don't think I am.

Why in the world would you say that?

[QMO]

"Except that no-body holds the patent on cocaine so its illegal."

I can't believe that reasoning.

First: Asprin and Alcohol aren't patented, and aren't illegal.

Second: Lots of patented drugs are VERY illegal. (It takes a lot of money, time, red tape, and testing to get a new patented drug to the point where it is even legal to test on people.)

But then you say:
"We don't need a pill to help us work harder, we just need to adjust our expectations."

Which I totally agree with.

Re:Why in the world would you say that?

[h4rm0ny]

Hi,

The reasoning wasn't so much that something without a patent must be illegal, but that if it were patented and a big corp could make big bucks from it, then they would find a way of getting it legal. After all, Ritalin is chemically very little different to Speed and it has the same effect. But one is legal and the other is not? Your own hypothesis for that situation would be ? ;)

Anyway, it was more of a sly-dig at the pharmaceuticals industry than a fully-researched argument. Still, I think I have basis. Glad you agree that we (the species) should be working less though. I think only a CEO could disagree with that. ;)

Re:Why in the world would you say that?

[blincoln]

That is true in some cases, but if you look at the chemical structure of the various neurotransmitters like norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine, and compare them to the amphetamine class of stimulants, they're virtually identical as a whole, not isolated examples.

Re:Why in the world would you say that?

[h4rm0ny]

That the other is prescription drug controlled by medical experts who have the necessary knowledge about it's effects and dosage, and the other is substance of unsure purity and blending sold by random crooks with no medical background whatsoever?

I agree. But the downside has relatively little to do with the drug itself and rather its legality. But that was your point too, so perhaps we're just agreeing with each other loudly. :)

Regarding this discrepancy between the two drugs' similarity yet their differing legal status, I think it happened something like this:

In the early sixties, Speed was outlawed and the police cracked down on it. This was accompanied by all the usual propaganda and hoo-ha, demonising Speed as a terrible evil. Later however, drug companies saw an opportunity to make money from speed but you can't suddenly turn round and say "You know that terrible stuff that will destroy your children, well it's okay if we give it to them." People would smell a rat.

So something that has a very similar effect is patented, marketed and in comes the money. But you know, Ritalin is spelt differently to Speed, so nobody panics about their children being fed it.

I normally avoid using any personal information in a discussion on /., anecdotal evidence and all that, but it might be interesting to know that I personally don't smoke, drink alcohol or drink coffee, tea, anything fizzy or containing aspartame or akasulfame-k. As far as I'm concerned, speed, ritalin, cocaine or prozac - all look pretty dodgy to me. But I do like to discuss things openly, and the pharmaceutical industry doesn't like that game at all.

My £0.02.

-H.

Re:Why in the world would you say that?

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, Ritalin is chemically very little different to Speed and it has the same effect.

I can also attest to the fact that it is VERY addictive.

When I was a teenager I developed some drug problems. My little brother was prescribed Ritalin and since it was readily available I stole it to get high. I started with crushing up 2-4 pills to snort them. It eventually got to the point where I became too lazy and dependant to snort them and would just down 20 - 30 at a time.

My mother would lock them up and hide them but I'd always find them and find a way to unlock them. She said she finally realized the full extent of my problem when I snuck into her bedroom one night and stole them right out of her pants pocket while she was sleeping.

Coming down from Ritalin is what I imagine coming down from speed or cocaine would be like. It's aweful. It's not a physical depedance, medically, but it sure as hell feels physical. You get very depressed, tired and you just all around feel like death.

Eventually, after being on a huge binge for a few nights and not sleeping, I came down and slept for 3 days straight. When I awoke my mother called an ambulance and requested 2 police escorts to take me to the hospital where I underwent forced rehabilitation.

I honestly can not believe that this shit is prescribed to 4 year-olds. Marijuana is illegal but we're dealing out highly addictive drugs to school kids on a regular basis for the sake of controlling their behaviour.

Re:Coming soon...

[h4rm0ny]

Your tin-foil hat is showing again.

Your ad hominem attacks are crude and blatant.

You misread my comments about use of these drugs at work. My reply to a previous poster will help you.

Regarding my sarcastic aside that cocaine would be legal if one of the big pharmaceuticals had a patent on it? Yeah - I don't think that's so far from the truth. Prozac is more damaging than (reasonable usage of MDMA) and that's legal where the other is not. Ritalin is very little different in effect and chemical structure to the speed you'll get on the street, yet one is legal and the other not. Marijuana is not super for your health, but I can make a strong case that it's less damaging than alcohol and no-one's ever got stoned and then gone out physically aggressive with me like they have when they're drunk. Yet one is legal and the other is not. Whether coke would pass the FDA if it were developed today? Maybe, maybe not. I'd say yes for prescription use.

Re:Coming soon...

[Zordak]

pending serious side-effects

Every drug has side effects. The only difference between a "side" effect and a "use" of a drug is which one gets advertised on the television. Drugs are designed to mess with your body. This particular drug messes with your body in very big ways. You can't mess with a brain this dramatically (especially on a regular basis) and expect that nothing bad will happen as a consequence.

Re:Coming soon...

[over_exposed]

Taking it to stay competitive is a far cry from being mandatory. Here's a stretch: Steroids enhance athletic ability and many athletes take them to stay competitive "Because taht guy did it and the only way to beat him is to take them too."

What I see happening is substances like this coming out and then people will abuse them. They will become addicted to them. Maybe not physically, but psychologically. "I can't be the best at my job if I don't take these so bottoms up!" As soon as abuse is spotted, public outcry will commence, support groups will spring up and tehy will become as popular as caffeine pills and speed. Not to say that caffeine pills aren't a problem, but they aren't mandatory by any employer and any company that doesn't want a lawsuit will not recommend or even offer them to their employees.

Your ideas have some merit to them and the "Look, why don't you just take one of these? You're letting us down." situation will probably occur, but it won't be at the company level. It will strictly be from employee to employee, peer to peer. Does your company have NoDoz (tm) in the break room? I doubt it.

Lastly, you "I crashed my car because they wouldn't sell me this at the garage and I fell asleep at the wheel." situation is not too likely in my mind. I can complain that my doctor didn't give me an adrenaline shot so I couldn't lift the car off of my wife when we got into a wreck. Ok, bad example, but anywho. I don't think you'll ever be able to register a justifiable complaint against someone because they didn't provide you with performance enhancing (because that's essentially what this is) drugs in any situation. You can complain on a medical basis (ie. my doctor wouldn't give me enough insulin and I went into a diabetic coma) but not on a supplemental basis.

Re:Coming soon...

[h4rm0ny]

I don't think you'll ever be able to register a justifiable complaint against someone because they didn't provide you with performance enhancing (because that's essentially what this is) drugs in any situation.

This is a performance enhancing drug, no need to qualify it. But people don't have to lodge a successful court case to get it legalised. The situation is a big pharmaceutical company wanting it sold everywhere and a public that will grouse if it isn't. 1 + 1 = 2 much pressure to resist. Short of serious side-effects, this will be a common over-the-counter medicine. By serious side-effects, I mean the medically inevitable things like kidney damage, et al. Not the equally serious but non-blameable-on-a-company side-effects of misuse (i.e. repeated or sustained use).

any company that doesn't want a lawsuit will not recommend or even offer them to their employees.

Company doesn't have to offer these to employees or require them. It'll just become part of the culture.

Taking it to stay competitive is a far cry from being mandatory.

This is my point. It isn't. What we need a cultural change so that it is.

Re:Is CX717 a....

[demachina]

" it can be very helpful for people who other things don't work for"

Well that can be said about medical Marijuana. Do we have to get Merck of Phizer to want to market, and profit from it, to get the Federal government to allow it. For people wanting to expand their consciousness I image LSD is helpful. For people looking to improve their sociability Ecstasy is very helpful.

Re:Coming soon...

[ifwm]

Ritalin/Adderall (your misspelling has me wondering how credible your knowledge is) are simialr to methamphetamine, but what does that have to do with anything? Similar chemicals can behave in VASTLY different ways.

They ARE NOT however, even remotely similar to cocaine, and by making such a statement, you show how little understanding you have of the chemistry involved.

Now we have drugs for sleep deprivation?

[VanessaDannenberg]

TFA doesn't really say exactly what the drug does, but it looks like it simply masks or relieves the symptoms of sleep deprivation.

As a long-time sufferer of obstructive sleep apnea (got the official diagnosis today in fact, after 15 or more years suffering from it), and showing all of the symptoms of it including extreme weight gain, lack of coordination, restlessness , ittitability, fatigue, and so on, I think I speak for everyone here - I'd much rather correct the problem of sleep deprivation itself than take some drug that claims to restore my mental state (in the case of depression: Zoloft, anyone?)

The few pills I take every day are already enough - stop typing to shove MORE chemicals down my throat that only take care of the symptoms, and start fixing the problem at the source. That's where our research needs to be focused, for *any* condition that needs corrected.

If the problem is lack of sleep because of lack of time or deadlines or something, then maybe a change of career or priorities is needed. But if it's medical, then corrective *action* is needed. I had to get totally out of the working world because I couldn't handle it anymore, and it was literally killing me. Is it really so hard then, to keep your job and just adjust your lifestyle to make more time for sleep?