Insomnia Due to Hyperactive Brain

Having trouble sleeping? According to new research out from Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, this may be because your brain is more active than most.

A study published in the scientific journal Sleep provides evidence that implies that chronic insomniacs have naturally hyperactive brains, allowing for better control over their body even when sleep deprived.

The research team came to this conclusion after studying the brain waves of two groups of study participants. One  group consisted of healthy sleepers. The other group consisted of individuals who were chronic insomniacs or chronic-intermittent insomniacs.

While chronic-intermittent insomniacs go days without sleeping, they do find nights of restful sleep at least once a week. Pure chronic insomniacs, however, have trouble sleeping without exception for months. According to the National Sleep Foundation, 10 to 15 percent of adults report they have come form of chronic insomnia, requiring sleep aids and in rare cases, even hospitalization.

According to the study, the researchers used magnetic impulses to painlessly stimulate different parts of each participants' brain. These impulses caused the brain to react physically, causing a motor reflex in each participant's thumb. The participants were asked then to try to override this reflex, making their thumb bend in the opposite direction of the reflex.

This exercise, a demonstration in the strength of each patients neuroplastricity, was expected to show that due to the consequences of sleep deprivation, such as loss of concentration, the insomniac participants would fare far worse than the healthy sleepers.

However, this was not the case. The insomnia group were able to move their thumb in the desired direction far more frequently. Measurements of each participant's brain waves showed that the participants with chronic insomnia had significantly stronger brain wave activity performing simple tasks, compared to the brain waves of the healthy sleepers.

The researchers concluded that people who experience chronic insomnia likely have brains that are geared higher to exert more mental effort all the time, which may explain for their difficulty sleeping. Still, the researchers also believe that a hyperactive brain may make difficult tasks beyond simple motor function harder. They plan to look into this theory through more research.

The study was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Sleep.