How Does Sleep Affect Brain Development?

Research has found that REM sleep has evolved to become part of the dreaming process otherwise known as REM sleep-dreaming. Sleep with electroencephalographic evidence of the brain shows that a human’s brain is awake during sleep because involuntary eye movement occurs. This occurs during the dreaming consciousness every human possesses which is part of the secondary consciousness every human has. There is also non-REM sleep which is sleep that occurs without the rapid eye movement. The importance of REM sleep and dreaming has been studied for many years and has gradually become more informative. REM sleep is important for a human because it allows for developmental brain growth which furthers the evolution of humans.

There are studies that have shown that sleep and dreaming are linked to learning and to repair the body and mind. If we were to stop REM sleep or dreaming, the body recovers by increasing dream sleep first, recovering the loss of REM almost precisely. This suggests that dreaming is important. It has been observed that a lack of sleep causes waking dreams, interruption with memory and learning, difficulty of thinking straight, less associations, and more. It has therefore been suggested that REM or dream sleep is important in maintaining our well-being.

A recent news article on CNN, Lack of Sleep May Shrink Your Brain, cites a research study suggesting that insomnia and other reasons for sleep deprivation may reduce brain mass. Although the study was correlational, the author of the news article focuses mostly on one of the three possible relations between sleep and brain mass: lack of sleep may cause shrinking of the brain. Only at the end of article, the author mentions that shrinking of the brain may cause lack of sleep, but completely disregards the third possibility that a third variable may cause both the shrinking of the brain and lack of sleep.

Many biotic scientists believe that sleep is a positive role, which is necessary for human's life. It has been shown that there are four sleep stages basics, and a dreamer has to have an NREM sleep which is before the REM sleep. Shafton (1995) states that when a person lay to sleep, they enter sleep onset or stage one by closing their eyes, but their eyes still have uncoordinated movements (SEMs). After a short time, they move to the next stages, which are two, three, to four sleep stage, and that takes ninety minutes to complete a sleep cycle. He also explains that during sleep stages two to four, the eye movements are absent, which is known as NREM sleep. In 1953, the REM was found by Aserinsky and Kleitman, which they explained it as a rapid

Sleep changes depending on age because children and infants sleep more and the older someone is the less sleep they get.

Behavior problems. Deliens, Gilson, and Peigneux (2014), goes into details about REM sleep and NREM sleep, which explains the different sleep stages. Furthermore, the study goes on to explain how Rapid Eye Movement (REM) is linked to the process of memory and No Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) sleep

In the first hour of sleep the brain quickly sinks into the deepest rest period of the night. During this time of NREM sleep (non-rapid eye movement sleep) the body is truly at rest. The brain is never at rest but satisfies itself at this stage with partial, vague thoughts and images. Sleepwalking and night terrors may occur during this stage. All Stage 2, 3, and 4 sleep is NREM.

Sleep is vital to give the cerebral cortex (the brain's "thinking" part) a rest. When we’re in a deep sleep, rapid eye movement (REM) occurs when your eyes move rapidly up for 30 minutes at a time, it continues every 90 minutes. Most of our dreaming happens during REM and our eyes moving forcefully, our bodies are very relaxed and that’s what make us continue to sleep. “One of the most recent and compelling explanations for why we sleep is based on findings that sleep is correlated to changes in the structure and organization of the brain. this phenomenon, known as brain plasticity, is not connection to sleep has several plays a critical implications. it is becoming clear, that sleep plays a critical role in brain development in infants and

The chemical blockage is how you’re able to dream about doing things, but you don’t actually move and act it out in your sleep. There are disorders, however, that cause people to sleep differently than what is deemed “normal.” Such a thing would be atopia, where people act out their dreams while sleeping (Stevens, 2011). They can also sleepwalk or wake up from sleeping but not be able to move although your conscious but their body is not yet ready to move.

NREM (non-rapid eye movement) sleep occurs during first 90 minutes of sleep and is passing time through the four stages of the NREM cycle (Feldman, 2015). All the stages of NREM sleep each have specialized sleep-wave patterns occurring to what stage of sleep one is in. Lasting only a few short minutes, stage 1 sleep is the transition period between wakefulness and sleep (2015). Many college students create the golden “winding down effect”, eyes drooping and phasing in and out of “I was not sleeping; I just closed my eyes for a little” during stage 1. The level of difficulty to awaken from sleep increases exponentially when entering stage 2 of the NREM cycle. The brain waves in this stage develop slow, regular patterns with “…momentary interruptions

There is a question that has baffled many psychologists and curious minds for centuries the question is why do we dream? Do we dream to save our mind from insanity and stress or is it because it’s a natural process? There is one thing for certain though most people dream, the question is can they remember it. The truth is all creatures can enter a certain type of REM sleep but it’s uncertain if they experience dreams on a human plane of thought. When we enter REM sleep our Rapid Eye Movement stage of sleep the deepest part of our sleep, the human body undergoes a temporary paralysis to stop the sleeping person from potential harmful movement. The dreaming process usually happens in this stage, but has been reported in NREM sleep.

Not only do teeangers internal sleep clocks change, but also the amount of sleep they need every night. The title of this page is “Teen Sleep Cycles Affect School Success: Habits That Help”. “Another change is the need for more sleep- teens need 8.5-9.5

Sleep is a concept that many students and adults hold dearly. There is nothing better than a good nap or a full hour or so of sleep, however, how much sleep we are expected to have daily is sometimes unknown and we may not be getting the recommended hours

“Dreaming and their subsequent emotional interpretation have been investigated and recorded since the beginning of recorded history”. (as cited in Palagini; Rodenlicht, 2010). Recent experimental investigations applied to neurobiological and psychological perspectives of sleep identify a greatly dynamic arousal state, which in turn predicts a variety of physiological responses. One of the key stages associated within sleep is known as REM (rapid eye movement) sleep; REM sleep at one stage was thought to be the primary dream period. However recent research and empirical evidence has shown that REM sleep does not have a direct relationship with dreaming, it is however purely and simply the stage of sleep which allows better recall of dreams.

Rapid eye movement (REM) was discovered in 1953, when Nathaniel Kleitman and Eugene Aserinsky were studying sleep deprivation in children. Aserinsky noticed that the children’s eyes began quickly darting as they began to lose attention and fall asleep, which was much different from the slow eye movement present at sleep onset. The fast movement was comparable to when someone is awake. Further research showed that during sleep, periods of highly coordinated eye movement is accompanied by distinct brain wave patterns, irregular breathing, and increased heart rate. This proved that the brain does not shut off when a person falls asleep and turn back on in the morning. REM is a series of cycles at consistent points during the night when the brain becomes very active. During a typical night of sleep, an adult follows the regular alteration cycle of REM and NREM, non-rapid eye movement. There are four stages of