Sleep is still very mysterious – so we have to admit, we did get a little bit excited when we read about the zebrafish in an article over at MIT’s Technology Review. Don’t feel silly – we had never heard of the zebrafish before, either. Apparently it’s a tropical fish that is often used in scientific research.
Zebrafish have 60,000 sleep-related behaviours and 463 significant sleep-altering compounds which makes them ideal candidates for further study and testing. Furthermore, these studies can be done relatively cheaply and often return better results compared to using non-vertebrates as test subjects.
Regular readers of this blog will know that we are always campaigning for more research into sleep and sleep disorders. The zebrafish may be our big hope. Fingers crossed.
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