Many shift workers believe they can make up for working nights by having a lie in when they’re not on duty
But new research suggests catching up on missed sleep at the end of the week is not sufficient to prevent long term damage.
The U.S. study revealed chronic sleep loss can lead to irreversible loss of brain cells.
The researchers, at the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine, found sleep loss is linked to injury to, and loss of, neurons that are essential for alertness and optimal intellect.
‘In general, we’ve always assumed full recovery of cognition following short- and long-term sleep loss,’ Dr Sigrid Veasey said.
‘But some of the research in humans has shown that attention span and several other aspects of cognition may not normalise even with three days of recovery sleep, raising the question of lasting injury in the brain, Daily Mail informs.
‘We wanted to figure out exactly whether chronic sleep loss injures neurons, whether the injury is reversible, and which neurons are involved.’
