Digital Scryer

The Washington University School of Medicine at St. Louis, released some more fruit fly sleep findings this week:

http://mednews.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/12092.html

These findings state that while it’s commonly known that people’s brains slow down with gradual sleep deprivation, they now know the reason and how to prevent it.

Regular fruit flies who were sleep deprived demonstrated a significant downward learning curve. Flies engineered with more dopamine receptors in their brain’s mushroom bodies (their equivalent to the human hippocampus) were able to maintain their mental performance despite a lack of sleep.

Basically their amount of dopamine seems to remain the same, they just have the ability to use it better. I’m wondering if this could have any nootropic (intelligence enhancing) side effects, other than just more mental stamina.

In the article they talk about how this could lead to methods for extended periods of wakefulness in emergency workers. The problem I see with it though, is the method by which it’s achieved. Upping your hippocampal dopamine receptors, whether through drug use or genetic engineering, would mean a major change in lifestyle. Your body clock wouldn’t be matched with the rest of the world and at the same time, I think it would create a caste system; regular sleepers vs. less sleepers. If you were a company, who would you be more likely to hire?

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Technorati Tags: Biology, Dopamine, Fruit Flies, Genetic Engineering, Genetics, Hippocampus, Learning, Memory, Nootropic, Sleep