Do insects need to sleep

We humans sleep from time to time. Those who have difficulty with this risk earning a host of health problems. Sleep and all mammals - you can see this on the example of your cat.

Reptiles, amphibians and birds don't mind either take a napDo Insects Sleep? / ThoughtCo, although you can’t immediately tell whether this animal fell asleep or not. Many of them do not close their eyes and do not change position when they are resting, but simply become motionless.

But are simpler creatures able to sleep - for example, insects?

On the Internet, you can find statements in the spirit of "sleep is a function of the brain, and all sorts of beetles and ants do not have it." However, this is pure myth.

Insects have brainDo Insects Have Brains? / ThoughtCo, consisting of three lobes - protocerebrum, deutocerebrum and tritocerebrum. Of course, he is not as cool as people. But still, calling insects mindless is not only offensive to them, but also incorrect from the point of view of science.

The average cockroach has the number of neurons isM. Heisenberg. What Do the Mushroom Bodies Do for the Insect Brain? An Introduction / Learning & Memory only about 200,000, while in the human skull there are aboutThe human brain in numbers: a linearly scaled‑up primate brain / Human Neuroscience 86 billion. At the same time, the brain is not as necessary for insects to survive as for the same mammals.

For example, a cockroach can be cut off its head, and it will live for some time due to the activity of the nervous system in the rest of the body.

Nevertheless, without this organ, the insect will not sweetFact or Fiction?: A Cockroach Can Live without Its Head / Scientific American. Having lost its head, it will be able to perform only the most basic actions, such as standing, crawling and responding to touch.

But at the same time, he will not be able to really hunt and look for food. After all, there are no brains (at least simple ones) to make decisions, no sense organs to navigate, or, at worst, a mouth to eat.

In general, insects still need a head. And the brain in it, in order to function normally, needs rest. And the insects are quite know howDo insects sleep? / BBC Science Focus Magazine sleep. True, they do it not exactly like mammals: they do not need to take a supine position. And these creatures cannot close their eyes. But sleep is still important to them.

Deprived of the opportunity to sleep, insects suffer from overvoltage - in this they are similar to us.

For example, researchers at the Neuroscience Institute in California and scientists at the University of Pennsylvania conducted independent experiencesJ. C. Hendricks. Rest in Drosophila is a sleep-like state / Neuron to deprive fruit flies of fruit flies of sleep. The poor flies, who were not allowed to rest for ten hours, diedP. J. Shaw. Stress response genes protect against lethal effects of sleep deprivation in Drosophila / Nature. But those who were left alone, restored the regime and returned to normal.

The vast majority of fruit flies love to rest in the dark and stay awake in the light. And after a sleepless night they restedFruit Flies In Dreamland? “Dozing” Invertebrates May Stir New Sleep‑Disorder Studies / American Association For The Advancement Of Science 50% longer when they were allowed.

The overtired flies slept without hind legs and practically did not reactM. N. wu. The Effects of Caffeine on Sleep in Drosophila Require PKA Activity, But Not the Adenosine Receptor / Journal of Neuroscience to irritants.

Drosophila are the most popular test subjects in the lab. But entomologists studiedDo Insects Sleep? / ThoughtCo sleep and other insects - cockroaches, bees, New Zealand ueta and monarch butterflies.

For example, it is reliably known that cockroaches sleep.

These nocturnal creatures seek food at night and avoid light. During the day they hide and go dormant. Circadian behavior of cockroaches controlledY. hamasaka. Chronobiological analysis and mass spectrometric characterization of pigment‑dispersing factor in the cockroach Leucophaea maderae / Journal of Insect Science complex hormonal system. But the brain also takes part in this. True, scientists have not yet fully understood what.

They spent experimentT. Reischig. Ectopic transplantation of the accessory medulla restores circadian locomotor rhythms in arrhythmic cockroaches (Leucophaea maderae) / Journal of Experimental Biology: they cut out a piece of the brain from one cockroach and put it in the head of another test subject. And the new owner took over the donor's sleep schedule.

Circadian rhythms are also fairly well studied. beesb. A. Klein. Work or sleep? Honeybee foragers opportunistically nap during the day when forage is not available / Animal Behavior. They know how to adjust their sleep schedule to the time when flowers open, supplying them with pollen. At this time, insects work, and when food is not available, they doze.

When the bees deprivedb. A. Klein. Sleep deprivation impairs precision of waggle dance signaling in honey bees / PNAS sleeping for long periods of time, they would become uncoordinated during their dances, which served to signal their fellow hives. Tired insects simply could not communicate normally with the rest of the swarm. In addition, the bees, which the researchers deliberately woke up too early in the morning, then tried to fill up during the daytime rest.

Sleeping bee. She is in a daze and does not respond to pushes. Video: John Hallman / YouTube

In general, insects can sleep as well as ours and strive to maintain a sleep pattern, even if they are disturbed. Let us take an example from them and also go to bed early today.

Dmitry Sazhko