Sleep Deprivation Of Sleep Affecting The Brain

Sleep is essential for optimal human function. In fact, a lack of sleep can actually affect important cognitive functions, like memory. A 2007 study added to the already substantial evidence that even acute total sleep deprivation impairs attentiveness, working memory, and reaction time in various tasks (Alhola, Polo-Kantola). One such way to further this investigation of the effects of sleep deprivation on memory is through the Memory Interference Test, or MIT. MIT is a program designed by Gaston Pfluegl, Ph.D., and Enrique Lopez, Psy. D., at UCLA to test the memory of students. Along with a memory test, the MIT also anonymously collected the physical states, mental states, and demographics of each student test subject, providing a substantial database through which students can test hypotheses, such as the connection between sleep deprivation and memory. Since the MIT requires short-term memory recall, the hours of sleep a student had before taking the test could have a noticeable effect on his or her performance. An unprecedented study this year found that sleep deprivation may actually even induce false memories, which would certainly impact a student taking the MIT because the test requires the subject to recognize images that have been previously presented to them (Frenda, et al). The hypothesis is that students who slept 8 hours before the test will perform better on the MIT than students who only slept 4 hours. The null hypothesis is that students who had adequate

Sufficient sleep is a biological necessity for the normal functioning of humans, it allows the body to rest and to replenish itself so that it is able to serve its function of living. In addition, mental and physical health depend on the amount of sleep we get. Most adults and students value work and college much more than sleep, this is due to the academic, career, and materialistic demands. Researchers have noted a positive correlation between lack of sleep and decreased physical health, mental health, and academic performance. Sleep consists of two cycles: non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM), which are sleep patterns that alternate throughout the night. Firstly, sleep begins with non-REM sleep lasting about 90 minutes followed by REM sleep lasting 10-30 minutes, then the cycle repeats itself. REM sleep is the most important phase of sleep because the body is internally awake, with waking-like brain activity, yet asleep and externally calm. Thus, an uninterrupted REM phase of sleep is necessary for integrating previously learned material, and giving the individual a feeling of being well rested and refreshed. Many individuals will put sleep off so that more work hours, and school work can be fit into the day in order to get a better outcome such as job promotions or better academic grades, but I believe that sleep deprived people show a low performance in daily tasks due to suffering from mental, and physical health disorders.

Everyone has a different amount of sleep that they try and get every night. Some can pass off three hours, nevertheless others try and get up to 16 hours. The amount of sleep recommended is seven to eight hours a night, and infants should have 14 to 16 hours of sleep. Scientists are trying to determine what triggers sleep and if the brain can contain information while the body is sleeping, until the body is awakened to recall that same information. Our body needs sleep to function properly, and it could possibly lead to diseases if there is not great deal of sleep.

To find out how sleep deprivation affects humans, Dement (1960) connected participants of his study to an electroencephalogram in his sleep laboratory. The participant got woken up any time they showed signs of entering REM sleep. I was found that REM sleep deprivation made test participants more aggressive and suffered from poor concentration than the control group. They also tried to enter REM sleep straight after going to sleep. They made 26 attempts to enter REM sleep by the seventh night. It is to conclude that REM sleep is necessary for proper brain functioning as the brain goes into REM rebound, when deprived of

Coming from a teenager, sleep is a beautiful thing that when I wake up at noon it allows me to feel fully revived and ready to seize what is left of the day. The great historic, Benjamin Franklin, once said of sleep, “Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” Nobody every really needed to prove the healthy part of his saying because most people know that after sleeping the body seems to gain energy. The second part to his statement probably could use a bit of proving because whenever I try that I never see a paycheck. The last part though is the part that I am most interested in, could having a better night’s sleep really make me a more intelligent individual? I didn’t know, the question nagged at my brain for a

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.

Sleeping affects the brain in ways that cannot be achieved by any other method, at least naturally. Lack of sleep is consistent with “higher levels of depressed mood, fatigue, and sleepiness,” which is observable in any person, but this trend is especially more true for adolescents, because of their developing brain and increased workload. (Fuligni, 2006) Students around the age of fourteen and fifteen are transitioning from middle school into high school and are forced to interrupt their previously set daily circadian due to earlier and later school obligations as well as increased socializing, after-school studying and extracurricular activities. The student’s home life and upbringing can play a large part in their mental health and even

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.

The human brain is complex and the way the body advances is through sleep. Sleep allows the body to rest, repair and rejuvenate itself. The brain is responsible for wave patterns called alpha and beta waves that through a series of stages, produces what we know as non-rapid eye movement (NREM), and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.

Many people don’t understand how important sleep is. “One aspect of brain health that has been well examined through neuroimaging and cognitive testing is the influence of sleep on the brain. The findings are indeed a wake up call with regard to the impact on focus memory, test performance, mood, and high risk behaviors.”(Willis 1). Throughout

A person's quality of life can be interrupted due to many different factors. One being loss of sleep. In many jobs, people face sleep restrictions. Some professions such as health care require working nights sometimes pulling double shifts. This often becomes the cause of chronic sleep deprivation. A lack of sleep can produce many issues including but not limited to cognitive dysfunction, higher risks of chronic health problems, depression, and accidental death, it can also be used as a form of torture.

The second study by Polzella, (1975) focused on the effects of sleep deprivation on memory. The author hypothesized that sleep deprivation increases the occurrence of lapses which prevents the encoding of items in memory. The method that was used to collect information was by having five males (one author and four participants), all their ages ranged from 21-32. Their sleeping habits for bed usually ranged from 10:30 pm- 12:00 pm and they would wake up typically at 6:00 am-8:00 am. The experiment was done individually where the participant sat in a small room with two fans and was presented visually on a cathode-ray tube run by a computer. Researchers conducted the experiment twice, the first time as a normal session and then as a sleep-deprived

For the introduction, I will prove that the loss of sleep can danger the body and decrease the rate of a person’s reaction timing. Everybody wishes they could stay in bed all day, but that is not possible. We have responsibilities we have to do such as work or school. In that case, getting enough rest is the number one thing everyone should be worried about. From my own experience, I have lost several hours of sleep due to studying, working, and personal issues that occur. These occurrences are quite frequent in the lives of others too, which makes it some of the reasons to why most people cannot get enough rest during the day. Although it seems like sleeping takes too much time, it soothes the brain from slowly breaking down. Sleep deprivation is dangerous to the body and it can increase a person’s risk of creating an accident. Through the lack of sleep, a person can reduce the brain’s energy and lose all intelligence in the current situation. Motor skills will be mostly affected along with memory. The brain is what allows the body to move and use logical thinking skills.

Lack of sleep causes major changes in physiology and brain function, and can even change brain tissue (Luce 94). A man once went through multiple days of no sleep to figure out the exact effects. After 160 hours of no sleep, the man would forget what he did moments before. He would become distracted by small noises, and he could not perform simple tasks without a lot of struggling (Kastner 93). “At 220 hours, Michaels could barely talk and had to be held up when he walked.”...“After fourteen hours of sleep, he awoke refreshed and feeling normal” (Kastner 93).The predictable course of deterioration that follows when an individual stops sleeping, shows the exceptional importance of sleep.