Word: czeisler
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...lack of sleep. The two nuclear plant accidents happened in the wee hours of the morning. Similarly, most truck wrecks related to fatigue occur between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. "Shift workers classically have to perform when their brains are trying to put them to sleep," observes Dr. Charles Czeisler of Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital. "They are fighting the internal clock." Many workers run on automatic pilot at that time; they execute routine tasks but are unable to process new information, like flashing red lights that signal danger...
...older person was chosen for this study because she normally followed a regular sleeping-waking schedule, and because her system was most susceptible to light during the evening hours, unlike those of younger people, who react most strongly in the middle of the night, said Czeisler, who co-authored the study appearing today in the journal Science...
...added that conclusions drawn from this single case would need to be confirmed by future studies. "More research must be conducted on younger subjects in order to discover normal response rates to bright light exposure," said James Allan '86, Czeisler's assistant, whose project inspired the study...
Possible applications of this discovery are still being explored, but it provides information valuable to scientists, said Czeisler...
...Some day we may be able to install bright lights in factories so workers on rotating shifts could get therapeutic doses of bright light on their evening shifts to reset their internal clocks in preparation for the next week's rotation to the night shift," Czeisler said...