Researchers have developed a blood screening test which identifies signs of acute total sleep loss. Blood samples were taken from 36 participants after a 40 hour period of sleep deprivation and analysed for unique biomarkers. The scientists found a subset of 68 genes, and could detect with 92% accuracy whether blood samples were from sleep deprived or rested participants.
Insufficient sleep poses a significant risk to our physical and mental health, and increases the risk of accidents. Such a screening tool could help to identify driver fatigue, which would be of great value in assessing cause of road traffic accidents and work place screening for industries such as mining, aviation and professional driving.
Journal Reference:
Emma E Laing, Carla S Möller-Levet, Derk-Jan Dijk, Simon N Archer. Identifying and validating blood mRNA biomarkers for acute and chronic insufficient sleep in humans: a machine learning approach. Sleep, 2018; DOI: 10.1093/sleep/zsy186
