Sleep-Wake Homeostasis

In a laboratory study of sleep deprivation, researchers employed a variety of techniques to keep

It is no secret that, similar to other animals, sleep is one of the most important things for a human being’s overall health. According to Watson and Breedlove, there are four main biological/neurological functions of sleep: energy conservation—the body uses less energy when it is asleep through what is called slow-wave sleep (SWS) by doing things such as reducing body temperature and slowing respiration; niche adaptation—the environmental happenings to which organisms are adapted to; body restoration—it restores materials used during awake hours; and memory consolidation—SWS and REM sleep help the brain consolidate memories from the previous day (2012).

Sleep is commonly referred to as a global state, one which engages the entire nervous system. The states of sleep and wakefulness are highly interconnected and share common physiological mechanisms; however, there are distinct differences in the neurochemical pathways that underlie them. The notion that sleep is a global state is supported by evidence that the interrelated states of sleep and wakefulness engage a multitude of neuronal pathways and components. These networks of neuronal transmitters and receptors extend throughout the brain; from the brainstem to the basal forebrain, thalamus, hypothalamus, and cerebral cortex. The onset of sleep and wakefulness is known

For humans, sleep patterns are regulated by human circadian clocks on a 24-hour time schedule. This regulator is located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the human brain. Our human circadian clock notifies us that we should be sleepy at night and awake and alert during the day. It is when this clock doesn't function well we must add supplements such as Melatonin (Golombek DA). The human body is naturally programmed to sleep at a certain time and wake up at a certain time. Several people have trouble sleeping at night due to various problems. These problems range "from sleeping illnesses including but not limited to insomnia, stress and sleep deprivation due to studying, partying and caffeine. Human bodies are designed in such a way that we release Melatonin naturally in certain amounts varying upon the time of day. It has been seen that recently more and more individuals are suffering from not being able to sleep properly at night due to their circadian clocks failing to regulate their sleep-wake patterns.

normal counterparts. These findings have led to a robust exploration in the science of sleep

and cognitive function. These findings have led to a robust exploration in the science of sleep

Stanford University School of Medicine scientists have identified a brain circuit that's indispensable to the sleep-wake cycle. This same circuit is also a key component of the reward system, an archipelago of interconnected brain clusters crucial to promoting behavior necessary for animals, including humans, to survive and reproduce.

Circadian rhythm sleep-wake are the disorders in which the sleep times are out of the alignment. Delayed sleep-wake phase (DSP), people also called night owls, consist of a typical sleep pattern that is delayed by 2 or more hours. However, one still can have normal enough amount and good quality of sleep for themselves. Another disorder of this category is advance sleep-wake phase (ASP), also known as early birds, which makes one fall asleep several hours before a normal bedtime. As a result, they also wake up hours earlier than the most people wake in the morning. The bedtime tends to occur between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. and tends to wake up between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. These might be people with early shift work such as the bakers or surgeons. Both

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania was trying to find out how the amount of sleep affects your body mentally. This is important so we know how to take care of ourselves and stay healthy. To test this experiment, the Perelman School of Medicine got a group of 40 adults and put them into two different experimental groups. They were placed in either a group where they stayed up for 28 hours consecutively or in a group where they received a full 8 hours of sleep. Afterwards, all participants took a computer based test. The students studied how the participants reacted to happy, neutral, or sad faces through accuracy and response time. Overall, the studies showed that the participants who stay up for 28 consecutive hours

Biological research for sleep pressure began more than a century ago, and there was a fluid found in the brains of the test subjects, the hypotoxin would reveal why subjects would grow drowsy. Come the 20th century, researchers began to tape electrodes to the heads of human subjects. Using the EEGs, the researchers found out that the brain has a clear routine during the night’s sleep. About 35-40 minutes into the sleep, the metabolism has slowed down and the breathing is even. Meaning now the sleeper is no longer easy to wake. “After a certain amount of time has passed, the brain flips a switch and the waves tend to grow small and tight again” (Greenwood). When this happens, it is called rapid eye movement, or REM sleep, which is our dreaming period. The more sleep- deprived that the subject is, the bigger the waves during slow wave sleep, which is before REM sleep. The search for the hypotoxin was not unsuccessful, however, there are a handful of substances that clearly demonstrated to cause sleep. Including a molecule called

What is sleep? The dictionary definition of sleep is as follows, “a condition of body and mind such as that which typically recurs for several hours every night, in which the nervous system is relatively inactive, the eyes closed, the postural muscles relaxed, and consciousness practically suspended,” (Definition). While this is undoubtedly true, there is so much more on the mystery of sleep. For many years people have wondered and debated on why humans sleep. There used to be many theories on why humans slept. With more advanced technology and stronger research many have been ruled out. In today’s society there are three commonly accepted, but debated, theories on

Sleep is an extremely interesting phenomenon in which the mind almost completely departs from the usual realm of consciousness. It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness and a decreased ability to react to stimuli where we become less aware of our surroundings. However, it is more easily reversed than being in hibernation or a coma. It is a function that has been extensively researched by many. After all, we would not have evolved a mechanism that forces us to spend one-third of our lives sleeping unless sleep did us some good. What good does it do tough? Over the years, many theories have been proposed as to why we need sleep. The simplest is that it saves energy. An individual’s energy expenditure and demand is reduced during the day,

Human behavior, though highly variable, tends towards a sleep cycle in which roughly eight hours are spent sleeping after every sixteen hours awake. The repetition of this cycle is the expression of the circadian rhythm. This paper investigates the circadian rhythm by dividing it into three functions: an internal clock that estimates whether it is day or night, an entrainment mechanism that adjust the clock to shifts in day/night cycles, and a signaling method that determines whether the organism will perform biochemical action appropriate to the clock’s perception of daytime or nighttime.

Many people take sleep for granted and undervalue its benefits. I myself used to think of sleep as just a time when one is idle and is doing nothing. When I have lots of coursework and many tasks to complete, sleep is often the first event on the schedule to be compromised. Sacrificing time to sleep for homework is not usually what leads to lack of sleep, unless one procrastinates. Many people do set aside enough time for sleep; however, they have trouble actually falling asleep. After reading the Scientific paper, I realized that problems sleeping are probably related to technology use.

the body’s sleep and wake cycle (Lieberman, et al, 1984). Research has shown that melatonin