ABSTRACT
Introduction............................................................................................................193 References..............................................................................................................198
In order to determine the molecular changes that occur in the brain during the sleepwaking cycle and after sleep deprivation, we have performed a systematic screening of brain gene expression in sleeping, spontaneously awake, and sleep-deprived rats. The data summarized here refer to the completed analysis of >20,000 transcripts expressed in the cerebral cortex. The expression of the majority (~95%) of these genes does not change between sleep and wakefulness or after sleep deprivation, even when forced wakefulness is prolonged for several days. A few hours of wakefulness, either spontaneous or due to sleep deprivation, increase the expression of several transcripts involved in energy metabolism, excitatory neurotransmission, transcriptional activation, memory acquisition, and cellular stress. The ~100 genes whose expression increases during sleep, on the other hand, provide molecular support for the proposed involvement of sleep in protein synthesis and neural plasticity, and point to a novel role for sleep in membrane trafficking and maintenance.
