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Came across the story below (http://blogs.mcall.com/health/2010/10/could-a-nightlight-make-you-f...) which touches on the strong connection between light/ dark and sleep. This relates to the circadian rhythm and the body's release of melatonin and serotonin in the appropriate amounts, at the appropriate times. It's a topic that we haven't talked about enough here on SleepGuide, and it's very rarely, if ever, discussed in the mass media:

Researchers have long shown that obesity leads to lost sleep—usually due to sleep apnea. They’ve also found that lack of sleep leads to weight gain by making you hungrier, slowing your metabolism and triggering depression (which can lead to increased eating).

None of that is surprising to me.

But when I saw this most recent study about sleep and obesity, I did a double take.

In it researchers exposed mice to dim light at night for 8 weeks. These mice gained 50 percent more weight than other mice who had normal periods of light and darkness. Interestingly, the mice who slept with the dim lighting managed to gain more weight even thought they were not physically eating more food than the control group.

They were, however, eating food at different times. “Something about light at night was making the mice in our study want to eat at the wrong times to properly metabolize their food,” said Randy Nelson, co-author of the study and professor of neuroscience and psychology at Ohio State.

If the results carry over to humans, it could mean that the time of day (or night) you consume your meals can make a much bigger difference to the size of your waistline than previously thought.

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the secondary cortical response evoked by a sensory volley is generally unaffected by reticular stimulation

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18421835

Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol. 1949 Nov;1(4):455-73.

Brain stem reticular formation and activation of the EEG.
Moruzzi G, Magoun HW.

Abstract
1. Stimulation of the reticular formation of the brain stem evokes changes in the EEG, consisting of abolition of synchronized discharge and introduction of low voltage fast activity in its place, which are not mediated by any of the known ascending or descending paths that traverse the brain stem. The alteration is a generalized one but is most pronounced in the ipsilateral hemisphere and, sometimes, in its anterior part. 2. This response can elicited by stimulating the medical bulbar reticular formation, pontile and midbrain tegmentum, and dorsal hypothalamus and subthalamus. The bulbar effect is due to ascending impulses relayed through these more cephalic structures. The excitable substrate possesses a low threshold and responds best to high frequencies of stimulation. 3. Some background synchrony of electrocortical activity is requisite for manifestation of the response. In the "encephale isolé", reticular stimulation has no additional effect upon the fully activated EEG. With synchrony, in spontaneous drowsiness or light chloralosane anesthesia, the effect of reticular stimulation is strikingly like Berger's alpha wave blockade, or any arousal reaction. In full chloralosane anesthesia, high voltage slow waves are blocked but no increase in lower amplitude, fast activity occurs. With barbiturate anesthesia, the reticular response is difficult to elicit or is abolished. 4. In the chloralosane preparation, the secondary cortical response evoked by a sensory volley is generally unaffected by reticular stimulation. Consequent sensory after-discharge is abolished, however, as is pyramidal tract discharge and jerky movements referable to it. Outside the sensory receiving area, secondary responses themselves may be reduced or prevented. 5. The convulsive spikes produced by local strychnine and those of a fit following supramaximal cortical excitation, are not decreased by stimulating the reticular formation. 6. The cortical recruiting response induced by low frequency stimulation of the diffuse thalamic projection system is reduced or abolished by reticular stimulation. 7. There is some indication that the cortical effect of reticular stimulation may be mediated by this diffuse thalamic projection system, for synchronized activity within it is similarly prevented by reticular excitation, and direct high frequency stimulation of this system, within the thalamus, reproduces the reticular response. It is possible, however, that other mechanisms may be involved in its mediation. 8. The reticular response and the arousal reaction to natural stimuli have been compared in the "encéphale isolé", in which EEG synchrony was present during spontaneous relaxation or was produced by recruiting mechanisms, and the two appear identical. 9. The possibility that the cortical arousal reaction to natural stimuli is mediated by collaterals of afferent pathways to the brain stem reticular formation, and thence through the ascending reticular activating system, rather than by intra-cortical spread following the arrival of afferent impulses at the sensory receiving areas of the cortex, is under investigation. 10. The possibility is considered that a background of maintained activity within this ascending brain stem activating system may account for wakefulness, while reduction of its activity either naturally, by barbiturates, or by experimental injury and disease, may respectively precipitate normal sleep, contribute to anesthesia or produce pathological somnolence
http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA291264

Abstract:
Shift work and jet lag can cause circadian desynchronosis. Bright light and Low Energy Emission Therapy (LEET), separately and together, were tested as interventions to improve sleep after a 10-hr phase delay of the work/rest cycle. Both interventions decreased awakenings during the first daytime sleep period after the phase shift. After 3 nights of bright light administration from 2200-0200 each night, the subjects who received bright light had greater total sleep time, better sleep efficiency, and less wake time during the sleep period as compared to subjects who were exposed to dim light. Three days of LEET treatment for 20-min prior to each daytime sleep period showed a non-significant trend for similar additive benefits, with the group who received both bright light and LEET showing greater total sleep time than the group who received only light, and the group that received only LEET showing greater total sleep time than the control group who received neither intervention.

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