On the brink of madness: how long can a person survive without sleep?

In 1997, the Guinness World Records stopped documenting records related to sleep deprivation. This decision was made due to concerns that individuals pursuing recognition might seriously harm themselves, according to IFLScience.

At the time this dangerous practice was halted, the record belonged to professional stuntman Robert McDonald, who stayed awake for 18 days, 21 hours, and 40 minutes in 1986.

"Although we have not tracked such records for a long time, we can say that no one has surpassed McDonald," reads the statement on the Guinness World Records website.

It is also claimed that McDonald fortunately did not suffer any long-term consequences from his sleepless marathon. Experts believe he was quite lucky.

According to data from Johns Hopkins Medicine, severe sleep deprivation can increase the risk of developing colorectal cancer, diabetes, and heart diseases. Prolonged wakefulness can age the brain by 3-5 years, which in turn is associated with a 33% increase in the risk of dementia.

Studies on mice have confirmed such concerns, showing that prolonged sleep deprivation significantly depletes the reserves of a protective protein in the brain called pleiotrophin (PTN). When the levels of this protein drop, neurons in the hippocampus begin to die off, leading to cognitive impairments and Alzheimer's disease.

According to former record holder Randy Gardner, who stayed awake for 11 days in 1964, such an experiment affected his short-term memory. After a few days of the experiment, he began to experience hallucinations and a deficit in working memory, which disappeared once he was able to sleep.

Scientists believe that all former record holders experienced a state known in medicine as "microsleep," where they briefly fell asleep for a few seconds at a time without realizing it. Therefore, in reality, none of these champions achieved the record time of staying awake.

Let us remind you that for the first time, science has received a direct answer to the question of why humans sleep. Researchers have found out why the human brain needs sleep.