Organisation: Sleep Research Centre, University of Surrey
Date uploaded: 11th October 2018
Date published/launched: September 2018
The researchers say the breakthrough, which could also assist employers in assessing fitness for duty, paves the way for a future test to accurately calculate how much sleep an individual has had.
Led by professor Derk-Jan Dijk, tests carried out on 36 participants who’d gone through a 40-hour period of sleep deprivation identified changes in the ‘expression levels’ of thousands of genes.
A machine learning algorithm identified a subset of 68 genes and, with 92% accuracy, could detect whether a sample was from a ‘sleep-deprived’ or ‘well-rested’ individual.
The researchers say identifying these biomarkers is the first step to developing a test which can accurately calculate how much sleep an individual has had.
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