Courtesy of Fractal Enlightenment
It seems nowadays that everyone has heard of someone who has taken Ambien or Ambien CR and exhibited bizarre behavior while not fully awake.
Sleepwalking, sleep eating and even sleep driving have all been reported, with many legal cases on the books involving sleeping pill related DUI’s. And although alcohol has played some part in promoting these side effects, not all drivers had tested positive for blood alcohol the time of their arrest.
Now there seems to be hard science behind why the brain on Ambien wakes up in the middle of the night, but doesn’t remember anything the next day. Researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center have suggested that while some powerful brain circuits are shut down with zolpidem, this powerful sedative hypnotic excites other circuits, especially when deprived of activity.
“Brain cells or neurons are highly reactive to incoming activity throughout life,” states Molly M. Huntsman, an assistant professor in the department of pharmacology at Georgetown University Medical Center and corresponding author for the study. “When brain activity is silenced, many neurons automatically react to this change. We see this in our study which suggests that inhibitory neurons responsible for stopping neural activity are themselves shut down by zolpidem. The excitatory neurons, responsible for transmitting activity, are then allowed to re-awaken and become active again, without monitoring because the inhibitory neurons are ‘asleep’.”
This is a lot like squeezing a water balloon on one end and having it bulge on the other. It’s simply the physics of pharmacological cause and effect, for every main effect achieved, there is always side effects to contend with. Most side effects are manageable and usually do not inflict great harm. But with sedative hypnotics, sleep walking and sleep driving can be deadly. (Click here for a Fox 11 News story on Ambien).
Several forward thinking doctors are seeing the value of using a brainwave treatment modality called neurofeedback to positive effect in restoring normative sleep patterns without the use of medications. David Dubin, MD, Dr. Daniel Amen and David Foster, MD are just a few physicians turning to neurofeedback for their patient populations. David Burns, M.D., a famous psychiatrist, professor emeritus and Stanford University and author of the book “Feeling Good”, remarks that “we will not make any further progress in psychiatry until we stop treating the brain as a chemical engine and begin treating it as an electrical engine.”
What’s meant by this is that the human brain is actually highly self intelligent and completely teachable on a bio-electrical level. As an example, many patients with chronic sleep deprivation with have developed whats called “theta 180″. This is where the brain polarizes the allocation of theta brainwaves from nighttime (where its needed) to daytime where it produces cognitive decline, trance-like behavior and in many cases, extreme irritability. Sleep medications simply do nothing to correct this anomaly. Neurofeedback, on the other hand can be used to re-train to reduce theta during the day, (at the time of treatment) and by default, reallocate it within it’s proper placement at night. It’s as elementary respecting the brain and it’s inherent intelligence and allowing it to self correct with the right reinforcement. The is the difference between pharma-chemical rigidity and bio-electrical neuro-dynamics. Give the human brain respect, as well as detailed and instantaneous data about its own firing, and it will invariably self-correct without side-effects. Of which (as most of us in the healthcare field are skilled at ignoring), is just the brain’s way of trying to tell us there has to be a safer and more permanent way to stabilize sleep.
David A. Mayen is founder and CEO of Sleep Recovery Centers, Inc. A neurofeedback practice specific to the sleep medicine field.
Copyright 2011 Sleep Recovery Centers, Inc. All rights reserved.
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