Investigating the science of waking up

  • March 8, 2021
Investigating the science of waking up

A new study led by Andrea Luppi investigates the links between the groggy state some people feel when they wake up and neural inertia.

By assessing each patient’s individual susceptibility to sleep inertia and current sleep debt, anaesthetists may be able to estimate individual likelihood of their patient experiencing neural inertia.

Andrea Luppi and colleagues

Do you wake up feeling refreshed and full of energy? That’s the traditional depiction of a good night’s sleep, but for many it is not the case. In the first minutes or hours after waking up, they feel groggy and lethargic.

This grogginess is called “sleep inertia” and a new study, led by a Gates Cambridge Scholar, investigates how it might apply to sleep induced by anaesthesia and how understanding it better may help patients to recover.

Sleep inertia varies across people and those with conditions such as narcolepsy suffer most. It is also more common when we don’t get enough sleep.

In the study published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, Andrea Luppi [2017] and colleagues propose that sleep inertia also occurs when people are waking up from artificial sleep induced by anaesthesia.

This “neural inertia” has been described as the difference between the dose of anaesthetic needed to bring
people in and out of unconsciousness and is observed across different species, from invertebrates to
mammals.

Sleep inertia is known to increase with age, and the researchers argue that, if neural inertia is just a form of sleep inertia, it may explain why older people are also more susceptible to neural inertia.

They say testing for individual patients’ susceptibility to sleep inertia may therefore help anaesthetists to predict the occurrence and extent of neural inertia.

They write: “If our hypothesis is correct, then it could have implications for clinical practice: by assessing each patient’s individual susceptibility to sleep inertia and current sleep debt, anaesthetists may be able to estimate individual likelihood of their patient experiencing neural inertia. In turn, this may better equip them to counteract adverse effects such as post-anaesthetic delirium.”

Andrea is doing a PhD in Clinical Neurosciences with the support of a Gates Cambridge Scholarship.

*Picture credit: young woman sleeping by Pedros Simoes, Portugal. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Latest News

Kasun Kariyawasam hailed as bridge engineering rising star

A Gates Cambridge Scholar has been selected as one of 17 winners of the New Civil Engineer Bridges Awards 2025 by New Civil Engineer. Kasun Kariyawasam won the Bridge Engineer […]

Why cancer needs to be reframed, not renamed

Cancer needs to be reframed rather than renamed in order to reduce overtreatment, a Gates Cambridge Scholar argues in a new article. In The Power of the ‘C’ word’, published by […]

Uncovering the complex layers of history in the Middle East

Noam Perl Treves’ PhD will explore Muslim-Jewish relations in 20th century Yemen, focusing on the country’s rural regions. The history of Yemeni Jews has been shaped by tribality, geographical dispersion […]

Climate diplomacy and just transitions: who pays for the future?

Three Gates Cambridge Scholars discussed climate diplomacy and just transition at a 25th anniversary Gates Cambridge Weekend on Saturday. The panel, chaired by Gates Cambridge Provost Eilis Ferran, covered the […]