Migrating birds sleep less, become more impulsive: Study

Washington, July 29 (ANI): Sparrows and other birds sleep very less and become highly impulsive in migratory seasons, says a new study.

University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers said that despite the behaviour, sleep loss itself was not entirely to blame for their impulsivity.

"In the wild, despite marked reductions in apparent opportunity to sleep, birds continue to successfully engage in prolonged flight, complex navigation and predator evasion during migration," said study director Ruth Benca.

The experts have linked the hyperactivity to the fact that the migrating birds' sleep periods become divorced from the light/dark cycle they follow during the non-migratory seasons of summer and winter.

Short sleep duration in the summer is also not associated with increased impulsivity.

According to Benca, whether this behaviour is related to a general failure of inhibition, a distorted sense of time, inattention to salient cues, or some other underlying mechanism is not clear yet. (ANI)