Sleep deprivation reduces the recovery of muscle injury induced by high-intensity exercise in a mouse model

Sleep is crucial to improve athlete performance and their circadian rhythm, but sleep patterns may be disturbed because athletes participate in several competitions. In addition, intensive training programs can cause muscle pain and psychological stress in athletes, resulting in a lack of sleep. Sleep also plays a critical role in the recovery of muscle injury induced by exercise. The current study evaluated the effect of sleep deprivation on the recovery of muscle injury induced by high-intensity exercise in a mouse model. In this study, 28 mice were randomly assigned to four groups (N = 7): control (Control), exercise (EX), sleep deprivation (SD), and sleep deprivation with exercise (EX+SD). The mice from the EX and EX+SD groups were subjected to high-intensity swimming. The results showed that 72-h sleep deprivation increased food intake and reduced body weight. However, the manipulation of 8-week exercise and/or 72-h sleep deprivation did not have any effect in the elevated plus maze task and tail suspension test. Interestingly, the EX+SD group exhibited improved memory performance in the Morris water maze and impaired motor activity in the open field test. According to the TNF-α level and aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and creatine phosphokinase (CK) activities, only the EX+SD group exhibited muscle impairment. Overall, high-intensity exercise may cause muscle injury, and adequate sleep can recover muscle damage. However, sleep deprivation reduces protein synthesis, which decreases the ability to restore muscle damage and aggravates the harmful effect of high-intensity exercise.