Environmental determinants of human sleep timing, duration and continuity: studies in hunter gatherers

人类睡眠时间、持续时间和连续性的环境决定因素：对狩猎采集者的研究

• 批准号: 10443855
• 负责人: JEROME M SIEGEL
• 金额: $ 71.49万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-15 至 2024-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10443855
• 关键词: Affect; African; Animals; Behavior; Belief; Birth; Body Temperature; Brain; Cities; Civilization; Climate; Computers; Consensus; Data; Development; Devices; Disease; Economic Development; Electricity; Electroencephalography; Environment; Exhibits; Frequencies; Genetic; Goals; Health; Health Benefit; Heating; Hour; Human; Human Pathology; Indian reservation; Industrialization; Internet; Laboratory Study; Language; Left; Light; Lighting; Link; Mattresses; Measurement; Minor; Modernization; Monitor; Napping; Pathology; Pattern; Peripheral; Persons; Phase; Physiological; Population; Primates; Process; REM Sleep; Regulation; Reporting; Risk; Role; Sampling; Seasons; Sleep; Sleep Starts; Sleeplessness; Slow-Wave Sleep; Societies; Temperature; Testing; Time; Vasodilation; Weather; alertness; base; circadian; cold temperature; day length; falls; insight; light effects; non rapid eye movement; prevent; response; sleep onset; sleep pattern; sound; vigilance; virtual

Abstract Many health disorders have been attributed to the changes brought about by “modern” civilization. Understanding how the changes in the modern environment are affecting health requires comparison with humans living in the pre-modern environment. The number of groups living in the traditional way is rapidly diminishing. Electrification and the economic development of Native American reservations eliminated such groups in the US decades ago. A similar process is ongoing in other regions of the world. Only a few groups of hunter-gatherers remain. We began a study of sleep in non-industrial humans to test the widespread belief that “modern” humans sleep much less than the evolved “natural” amount. We found that, surprisingly, at the time points that we sampled, sleep durations in all three groups we studied were lower than those seen in most studies of industrial societies. Furthermore, we found a nearly 1 hour difference between summer and winter sleep durations in the two groups we sampled for 1 week periods in both seasons, settling the longstanding controversy over whether human sleep durations respond to seasonal changes. The prior consensus was that there was no difference or only a minor change in duration. We also found that, unlike other primates, humans in the natural environment do not typically start sleep at sunset nor do they awaken at sunrise. Rather, sleep onset is several hours after sunset and awakening is 30-60 minutes before sunrise. At the time points examined, our preliminary studies suggest that hunter-gatherers do not show peripheral vasodilation at sleep onset. But, they peripherally vasoconstrict upon awakening. In contrast, laboratory studies show that “modern” humans have the opposite pattern, peripherally vasodilating at sleep onset but not peripherally vasoconstricting upon awakening. Most strikingly, hunter-gatherers do not report or exhibit substantial levels of insomnia, with rates under 2%, in comparison to the 10-15% rates reported in all industrial societies. Our data suggest that environmental temperature and the thermoregulatory responses to the daily temperature cycle may be as important, or more important, than light level in the physiological regulation, function and pathology of human sleep. Nearly all studies of the timing of human and animal sleep have been conducted at constant, thermoneutral temperatures and have focused on the role of electric light. We propose to record sleep and core, peripheral and ambient temperature as well as ambient light levels under natural, evolutionarily relevant conditions by monitoring subjects continuously across an entire year. Our integrated approach will allow us to compare the effect of light and temperature on sleep time, EEG defined sleep states and alertness. These will be the first such studies under natural conditions and will provide insights into the temperature and light parameters differentially linked to REM vs nonREM sleep, EEG spectra, sleep duration, sleep continuity and daytime alertness in humans. This data may explain the virtual absence of insomnia in hunter-gatherers, its ubiquity in industrialized societies, and suggest treatments to reverse this disorder.

抽象的 许多健康问题被归因于“现代”文明带来的变化。 了解现代环境的变化如何影响健康需要与 生活在前现代环境中的人类以传统方式生活的群体数量正在迅速增加。 电气化的减少和美洲原住民保留地的经济发展消除了这种情况。 几十年前，美国的一些团体也在进行类似的过程。 我们开始对非工业人类的睡眠进行研究，以检验人们普遍认为的观点： 令人惊讶的是，“现代”人类的睡眠时间比进化后的“自然”睡眠时间要少得多。 根据我们的采样点，我们研究的所有三组的睡眠持续时间都低于大多数人的睡眠持续时间 此外，我们对工业社会的研究发现，夏季和冬季之间存在近 1 小时的差异。 我们在两个季节各 1 周内采样了两组的睡眠持续时间，解决了长期存在的问题 关于人类睡眠持续时间是否对季节变化做出反应的争论此前的共识是： 我们还发现，与其他灵长类动物不同，人类的持续时间没有差异或只有微小的变化。 在自然环境中，它们通常不会在日落时开始睡眠，也不会在日出时醒来。 发病时间为日落后数小时，醒来时间为日出前 30-60 分钟。 经过检查，我们的初步研究表明狩猎采集者在睡眠时不会表现出外周血管舒张 但是，实验室研究表明，它们在醒来时会出现外周血管收缩。 人类具有相反的模式，在入睡时外周血管舒张，但外周血管不舒张 最引人注目的是，狩猎采集者并没有报告或表现出大量的血管收缩。 失眠的发生率低于 2%，而我们的数据显示，所有工业社会的发生率均为 10-15%。 表明环境温度和对日常温度周期的体温调节反应 在生理调节、功能和病理方面可能与光水平一样重要，甚至更重要 几乎所有关于人类和动物睡眠时间的研究都是在恒定的情况下进行的。 我们建议记录睡眠和热中性温度。 自然、进化相关的核心、外围和环境温度以及环境光水平 通过全年持续监测受试者的情况，我们的综合方法将使我们能够 比较光和温度对睡眠时间的影响，脑电图定义睡眠状态和警觉性。 是第一个在自然条件下进行的此类研究，并将提供对温度和光照的深入了解 与快速眼动睡眠和非快速眼动睡眠、脑电图谱、睡眠持续时间、睡眠连续性和 人类白天的警觉性可以解释狩猎采集者实际上没有失眠的原因。 在工业化社会中普遍存在，并提出了扭转这种疾病的治疗方法。