Brain 'still active during sleep'

The brain is still active while we are asleep, say scientists, who found people were able to classify words during their slumber.

Researchers from Cambridge and Paris introduced participants to a word test while awake and found they continued to respond correctly while asleep.

The sleeping brain can perform complex tasks, particularly if the task is automated, the study says.

Further research will now focus on how to take advantage of our sleeping time.

Writing in the journal Current Biology, the research team set out to study the brain's behaviour while awake and during sleep.

Using an electroencephalogram (EEG), they recorded the brain activity of participants while they were asked to classify spoken words as either animals or objects by pressing a button.

Unconscious behaviour

Participants were asked to press a button in their right hand for animals and in their left hand for objects.

This allowed researchers to track the responses and map each word category to a specific movement in the brain.

Then participants were asked to lie down in a darkened room with their eyes closed and continue the word classification task as they drifted off to sleep.

Once asleep, a new list of words was tested on participants to ensure that the brain had to work out the meaning of the words before classifying them using the buttons.

Their brain activity showed they continued to respond accurately, the researchers said, although it happened more slowly.

At the time, the participants were completely motionless and unaware.

it was possible for people to perform calculations on simple equations while falling asleep and then continue to identify those calculations as right or wrong during a snooze.

Any task that could become automated could be maintained during sleep, he said. But tasks that cannot be automated would stop as sleep took over.

Their research could lead to further studies on the processing capacity of our sleeping brains, the study said.

Depression on children. ....

Being bullied regularly by a sibling could put children at risk of depression when they are older.

Around 7,000 children aged 12 were asked if they had experienced a sibling saying hurtful things, hitting, ignoring or lying about them.

The children were followed up at 18 and asked about their mental health.

A charity said parents should deal with sibling rivalry before it escalates.

Previous research has suggested that victims of peer bullying can be more susceptible to depression, anxiety and self-harm.

This study claims to be the first to examine bullying by brothers or sisters during childhood for the same psychiatric problems in early

'Twice as likely'

Most children said they had not experienced bullying. Of these, at 18, 6.4% had depression scores in the clinically significant range, 9.3% experienced anxiety and 7.6% had self-harmed in the previous year.

The 786 children who said they had been bullied by a sibling several times a week were found to be twice as likely to have depression, self-harm and anxiety as the other children.

In this group, depression was reported by 12.3%, self-harm by 14%, and 16% of them reported anxiety.

Girls were slightly more likely to be victims of sibling bullying than boys, particularly in families where there were three or more children.

Older brothers were often found to be responsible.

On average, victims said that sibling bullying had started at the age of eight, the study said.

Suicide every 40 seconds

Somebody dies by taking their own life every 40 seconds, according to a significant report by the World Health Organization (WHO).

It said suicide was a "major public health problem" that was too often shrouded in taboo.

The WHO wants to reduce the rate of suicide by 10% by 2020, but warned that just 28 countries have a national suicide prevention strategy.

Campaigners said there needed to be more education in schools.

The WHO analysed 10 years of research and data on suicide from around the world.

It concluded:

• Around 800,000 people kill themselves every year

• It was the second leading cause of death in young people, aged 15 to 29

• Those over 70 were the most likely to take their own lives

• Three-quarters of these deaths were in low and middle income countries

• In richer countries, three times as many men as women die by suicide

It said limiting access to firearms and toxic chemicals was shown to reduce rates of suicide.

And that introducing a national strategy for reducing suicides was effective, yet had been developed in only a minority of coun