APSS: Short-Wave Sleep Enhancers May Have Roll in Insomnia

The studies might have been too short to have the needed impact, he said, and predicted that further attempts with these types of drugs would be forthcoming.

Neil Harrison, Ph.D., of Cornell University, opened the symposium with a review of the pharmacology of the key GABA-a receptor, noting the heterogeneity of the 19 distinct receptors and how various pharmaceutical agents involved in the treatment of insomnia fit into those receptors.

New experiments in an animal model of insomnia was the focus for Clifford Saper, M.D., Ph.D., of Harvard. The hope, he said, is that they may pinpoint where and how pharmaceuticals can reduce the arousal functions that prevent insomniacs from getting to sleep.

Creating lesion in the brains of rats -- "something I couldn't get our IRB to approve for humans," he joked -- Dr. Saper and Georgina Cano, Ph.D., determined that a key to insomnia may lie in the brain's amygdala.