Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Circadian neuroscientist who discovered a light receptor in the eye and studies sleep and circadian rhythms.
On the island
Eight records
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:42What's your theory on why we sleep?
There is a lot of controversy about why we sleep. My view is fairly clear. … So, my definition of sleep would be a period of inactivity to prevent us moving around with an environment to which we're poorly adapted, but during which time we perform a whole bunch of essential biology to allow us to function optimally during the day.
Presenter asks
3:40What are the consequences for our brains of not sleeping properly?
Well, short-term sleep disruption is associated with profound brain dysfunction. … And the tired brain will remember negative stuff and forget the positive stuff. … And long term, sleep disruption is associated with a whole range of major health problems, across coronary heart disease, metabolic abnormalities, to even a greater susceptibility of cancer. That's why sleep is so important.
Presenter asks
4:35As head of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at Oxford, how do you sleep?
Actually very well. And one of the great things about becoming a professor is, you know, then you decide where the meetings will happen. And you'd be damn sure they're not going to happen at eight o'clock in the morning, they're going to be at ten o'clock, when my younger colleagues are alert and able to give their very best.
The keepsakes
The book
Thomas Henry Huxley (two-volume biography)
Adrian Desmond
his two-volume biography as Thomas Henry Huxley is, I think, a really fantastic achievement explaining the scientific world at that time in the backdrop of Victorian London. I've loved it.
The luxury
Snorkel, mask, fins, and digital camera
I want to study the marine life and record nature and maybe do some simple experiments.
Presenter asks
12:16Your headmaster described you as entirely non-academic. What do you make of that looking back?
Yeah, well I I think that the school systems were very different. The headmaster took my parents aside and said, you know, you do realise Russell is an entirely non academic child. Um and I was in remedial classes. I just lived in my own little world.
Presenter asks
20:22Please explain photosensitive ganglion cells and their discovery.
Well, we asked a very simple question, which is that you have this biological clock ticking away in the brain. … And those early experiments led to the discovery that there's a third class of light-sensitive cell within the eye that is regulating biological time, and actually a whole range of other sorts of bits of our biology. … But it took a decade to try and convince the vision community.
Presenter asks
27:32Given that shift work is a probable carcinogen, what should be done at a governmental level to encourage good sleep?
I think that the 24-7 society is here to stay. … why don't we have higher frequency health checks in our night shift workers? … why aren't we providing food on the night shift that is appropriate … we've got to provide our young people with education so they know the consequences of why good sleep is important.
“We are utterly different individuals in the middle of the day and the middle of the night.”
“And one of the great things about becoming a professor is, you know, then you decide where the meetings will happen. And you'd be damn sure they're not going to happen at eight o'clock in the morning, they're going to be at ten o'clock, when my younger colleagues are alert and able to give their very best.”
“Yes, of course it did, Russell, because you have to accommodate the male ego.”
“So my response was, yes, I'm very sorry, but gallivanting is a fundamental part of my nature.”
“It's a bit like an orchestra. You've got this conductor sending out a signal to coordinate the rhythmic activity of billions of individual clocks throughout the rest of the body. And without that synchronization, they all play at a slightly different time. So instead of this sort of symphony, you have a cacophony.”
“I think increasingly we'll begin to regard people who disregard their sleep almost like smokers. This is not essentially socially acceptable.”