A Hindu male, aged 25, was given sulphathiazole for nasal sinusitus after a common cold; first dose (4 tablets) given at night. Late at night he woke up with itchiness of the scalp and in the morning he had puffiness and oedema of the face and scalp (giving a wrinkled baggy appearance to the face). It was soon relieved by an injection of adrenalin. No more of the sulpha-drug was taken.' A year ...

O ne of the eight blessings mentioned in Buddhist teachings is the ability to enjoy good quality sleep. Any of us who has spent a night tossing and turning will attest to that truth, but it is interesting that a philosophy that stresses the importance of 'waking up' should also sing the virtues of sleep. Perhaps the two are intimately related? Being awake or 'watchful' is obviously vital in ord...

Lack of the physiological nocturnal fall in blood pressure (BP) has been found in diabetics and it seems to be related to the presence of diabetic complications. The present study examined the changes in the nocturnal BP pattern of 8 normotensive insulin-dependent diabetic adolescents without nephropathy following improvement in glycemic control induced by an 8-day program of adequate diet and ...

To evaluate the effects of shift work and race/ethnicity on the diurnal rhythm of blood pressure and urinary catecholamine excretion of healthy female nurses, 37 African American women and 62 women of other races underwent ambulatory blood pressure monitor and urine collection for 24 hours that included a full work shift: day shift (n=61), evening shift (n=11), and night shift (n=27). Awake and...

BIOLOGIC CHANGES LEADING TO SLEEP CHANGES About the time that puberty starts, adolescents develop a 2-hour sleep-wake “phase delay.” This means that if your child usually went to bed at 8 PM and woke up at 6 AM, then during adolescence he or she may feel more awake in the evening so that he or she does not feel like he or she has to go to bed until around 10 PM. Since most adolescents still hav...

The resetting of the circadian clock based on photic cues delivered by the glutamatergic retinohypothalamic tract is an important process helping mammals to function adaptively to the daily light-dark cycle. To see if the photic resetting relies on voltage-gated Ca(2+) channels (VGCCs), we examined the effects of VGCC blockers on the glutamate-induced phase shifts of circadian firing activity r...

Consistent empirical results showed that both night and day sleep enhanced memory consolidation. In this study we explore processes of consolidation of memory during awake hours. Since theta oscillations have been shown to play a central role in exchange of information, we hypothesized that elevated theta during awake hours will enhance memory consolidation. We used a neurofeedback protocol, to...

Almost all studies of sleepy driving are carried out in driving simulators and with monotonous road conditions (no interaction with other cars). The present study investigated indicators of sleepy driving in a more challenging scenario after a night awake. 17 participants drove a high fidelity moving base driving simulator experiment while sleepiness was monitored physiologically and behavioura...

Kenneth N. Fortson is a Ph.D. candidate, Department of Economics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. Shortly after 4:00 A.M. on March 28, 1979, mechanical equipment at the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, malfunctioned. In the course of responding to the emergency, operators working the late-night shift made errors that exacerbated the situation, result...