Restriction of rapid eye movement sleep during adolescence increases energy gain and metabolic efficiency in young adult rats

Abstract

New Findings r What is the central question of this study?Sleep curtailment in infancy and adolescence may lead to long-term risk for obesity, but the mechanisms involved have not yet been determined. This study examined the immediate and long-term metabolic effects produced by sleep restriction in young rats. r What is the main finding and its importance?Prolonged sleep restriction reduced weight gain (body fat stores) in young animals. After prolonged recovery, sleep-restricted rats tended to save more energy and to store more fat, possibly owing to increased gross food efficiency. This could be the first step to understand this association.Sleep curtailment is associated with obesity and metabolic changes in adults and children. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the immediate and long-term metabolic alterations produced by sleep restriction in pubertal male rats. Male Wistar rats (28 days old) were allocated to a control (CTL) group or a sleep-restricted (SR) group. This was accomplished by the single platform technique for 18 h per day for 21 days. These groups were subdivided into the following four time points for assessment: sleep restriction and 1, 2 and 4 months of recovery. Body weight and food intake were monitored throughout the experiment. At the end of each time period, blood was collected for metabolic profiling, and the carcasses were processed for measurement of body composition and energy balance. During the period of sleep restriction, SR animals consumed less food in the home cages. This group also displayed lower body weight, body fat, triglycerides and glucose levels than CTL rats. At the end of the first month of recovery, despite eating as much as CTL rats, SR animals showed greater energy and body weight gain, increased gross food efficiency and decreased energy expenditure. At the end of the second and fourth months of recovery, the groups were no longer different, except for energy gain and gross food efficiency, which remained higher in SR animals. In conclusion, sleep restriction affected weight gain of young animals, owing to reduction of fat stores. Two months were sufficient to recover this deficit and to reveal that SR rats tended to save more energy and to store more fat.

Disturbances of sleep and circadian rhythms: novel risk factors for obesity

“…Control animals were placed in the same containers but the disk was rotating over sawdust rather than water. During the month of recovery following the intervention, rats who were previously sleep restricted showed greater body weight gain and energy stores and decreased energy expenditure as compared to controls, despite eating the same amount [11]**.…”

Chronic REM sleep restriction in young rats increases energy expenditure with no change in food intake

“…Reduction of body weight gain in sleep restricted/deprived animals is a widely described phenomenon that occurs with any technique employed to induce sleep loss (Barf et al., 2012; Everson & Wehr, 1993; Hipolide et al., 2006; Koban & Swinson, 2005; Koban et al., 2008; Moraes et al., 2014; Suchecki et al., 2003; Venancio & Suchecki, 2015). Recent studies conducted in our laboratory showed that young rats subjected to REM sleep restriction for 21 days had lower body weight gain (Ribeiro‐Silva et al., 2016) and smaller growth rate (naso‐anal length measurement) compared to control rats (da Silva Rocha‐Lopes et al., 2018). Corroborating the literature data, our results showed a reduction in body weight gain of approximately 64%, 34% and 35% in the SR groups compared to controls after 7, 14 and 21 days, respectively.…”

“…Regardless of the sleep restriction method used, e.g. gentle handling (Jha et al., 2016), forced activity (Barf, Meerlo, & Scheurink, 2010; Sengupta et al., 2017), a single‐platform method (Ribeiro‐Silva, Nejm, da Silva, Suchecki, & Luz, 2016; Venancio and Suchecki, 2015) or a modified multiple‐platform method (da Silva Rocha‐Lopes, Machado, & Suchecki, 2018), the result consistently involves metabolic changes. Importantly, these different methods result in disruption of both non‐REM and REM sleep phases, indicating that both are critical for energetic metabolism.…”

“…Sleep restriction for 21 days (18 h per day) decreases weight gain of adult (Venancio & Suchecki, 2015) and juvenile rats, accompanied by a growth deficit (da Silva Rocha‐Lopes et al., 2018), and reduces fat stocks, probably due to increased energy expenditure (Ribeiro‐Silva et al., 2016). Barf et al.…”

Immediate and long-lasting cognitive consequences of adolescent chronic sleep restriction.

“…Their study provides the present study with foundational evidence of memory deficits as a result of adolescent CSR. Their findings speak to the vulnerability of the adolescent brain, as do a number of other studies in which sleep disturbances in adolescence show immediate and, in some cases, long-lasting changes(Billeh et al, 2016; Novati et al, 2011;Saré et al, 2016;Ribeiro-Silva et al, 2016). The demonstrated vulnerability of the adolescent brain to sleep deficiency and the gap in research on resulting cognitive…”