It’s believed we need sleep because of a waste product called adenosine builds up in our brains while we’re awake. When we’re unconscious the waste stops building up and the CSF in the brain gets rid of it. Adenosine is a CNS depressant and works on the same receptors as sleeping pills. Eventually your nervous system would be so depressed you’d just fall unconscious as if you took some sleeping pills.
Its not the lack of sleep that kills you, it is the stress on your body from not sleeping for long periods of time causing things like heart failure and aneurysms.
I thought they discovered that most sleeping pills block adenosine clearance. That would mean that adenosine would still build up and you would eventually sleep excessively
From what I’ve heard it is actually hard to fall asleep after an extended time of being awake. I doubt the one mechanism discussed here is enough to explain all that is going on while sleep deprived.
“Fatal insomnia is an extremely rare neurodegenerative prion disease that results in trouble sleeping as its hallmark symptom.”
Fatal insomnia is a misnomer. It’s a prion disease that literally eats away at the brain including the part of the brain that controls respiration and temperature. My point is the adenosine waste levels in the brain (fun fact, adenosine is what makes us feel sleepy or even start hallucinating if we’ve been awake too long, caffeine blocks the receptors of this waste product) would cause unconsciousness before they became fatal. I’ve never heard of anyone not being able to go unconscious.
I mean, yeah sure, but do either long enough and you’re probably gonna have some permanent neurological damage