Should Scientists Try to Eliminate the Need for Sleep?

December 21, 2007

During one of my usual late-night Googlethons fueled by potent Vietnamese coffee, I came across a fascinating 2006 article from New Scientist, “Get ready for 24-hour living,” which discusses the recent development of drugs that can allow a person to remain awake for hours or even days without ill effects. One such drug is modafinil, a medication whose maker, Cephalon, describes it as the “first in a new class of wake-promoting agents.” Approved by the FDA as a treatment for narcolepsy, excessive sleepiness caused by obstructive sleep apnea/hypopnea and shift work sleep disorder, modafinil also reportedly is popular off-label with overachievers such as “Yves,” a 30-something software developer from Seattle who has been using it on-and-off for several years, mostly to burn the candle at both ends.

"I find I can be very productive at work," he says. "I'm more organized and more motivated. And it means I can go out partying on a Friday night and still go skiing early on Saturday morning."

But the present generation of eugeroic drugs such as modafinil and CX717, another compound whose sleep depriviation-countering effects have drawn interest from the U.S. military, probably are just the start. New Scientist reports that several pharmaceutical giants are gearing up research on wakefulness drugs, and that the Pentagon is also looking at technologies such as transcranial magnetic stimulation, which might be used to switch on or off portions of the brain affected by sleep deprivation. The publication quotes Oxford University circadian biologist Russell Foster, who envisions that, in the next decade or two, it’ll be possible pharmacologically to turn off the need for sleep. As a result, according to Foster,  people routinely will be awake and active for 22 hours a day.

The ability to function at a high level without sleeping much — or at all — for long periods would have some definite upsides. Medical residents wouldn’t have to worry about misdiagnosing emergency-room patients because their cognitive faculties have been reduced to goo by brutally long shifts. Truck drivers could pull coast-to-coast runs without slowing down, except for an occasional pie-and-coffee break. Particularly ambitious people could hold two full-time jobs at once or simultaneously earn multiple Ph.D.s. Earning a spot for the longest this-or-that in the Guinness Book of World Records would become a lot easier.

But what about the possible downsides? According to the National Sleep Foundation, less-than-normal amounts of good quality sleep have been linked to health problems such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension and depression. The precise role of sleep in memory processing is not completely understood, either. Would reducing or eliminating sleep cause an epidemic of related health problems? What sort of effects would it have on our personalities and social interactions? With all that additional time to read blogs and watch 24-hour cable news, would we all suffer from mega information overload — or worse yet, become so insufferably well-informed on every subject that we’d bore each other to death?

So should scientists develop wakefulness drugs and technology to their logical extreme? Or should we keep on snoozing? Express your opinion below.