Montreal Gazette, CTV, et al. - Montreal researcher finds key to good night's sleep

Montreal psychiatrist Gabriella Gobbi was testing a new drug on depression in her laboratory when a curious thing happened. The mice fell asleep. Not the kind induced by sleeping pills but the deep, restorative slumber of childhood. Conducted in collaboration with scientists in Italy, the discovery of a novel drug called UCM765 is expected to pave the way for new treatment for sleep disorders, which afflict millions worldwide.

Published in the Journal of Neuroscience, the research on rats and mice found that the drug administered under the skin or directly into the brain had two distinct effects on sleep: Rats got to sleep 60 per cent faster than the control group that did not get the drug, and they slept longer, increasing non-REM sleep, also known as "deep sleep" by 45 per cent, said Gobbi, an associate professor of psychiatry in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University.