system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How does sleep deprivation eventually lead to death?
gpt
It doesn't. Sleep deprivation leads you getting more and more tired. If kept awake, eventually you will start microsleeping no matter how hard you try to avoid it. Now, if you are talking about FFI (Fatal Familial Insomnia), it's not a lack of sleep that kills. It's a symptom of what's killing you, a prion disease that's eating holes in your brain. Insomnia is usually one of the first symptoms, but as the disease progresses people can have hallucinations and all sorts of other brain malfunctions.