Spatial Learning And Memory At Acute And Chronic Sleep Deprivation Essay

There are a few factors that are essential for life such as breathing or eating, but one of the most essential factor is sleep. Even though the amount of sleep people need differs from one individual to another, the fact is that eventually everyone needs to sleep. People know the importance of sleep, but due to the increased workload and the pressure of society people are getting less sleep. As a result, there has been an increase interest on the effects lack of sleep has on the mind especially the memory of a person. Many questions arose about the relationship between sleep and memory due to the fact most high school and college students have become sleep deprived. For example, does more sleep mean higher grades?

Sleep deprivation is prevalent in industrialized societies and has been linked to serious health issues and traffic accidents. This essay views sleep and sleep deprivation from five different motivational perspectives in order to gain a holistic understanding of the phenomena. From evolutionary, psychodynamic, behaviourist, cognitive, and hierarchy of needs perspectives, it is inferred that the cognitive and behaviourist perspectives uphold the most merit for gaining understanding into sleep and sleep deprivation. However, it is

The article Sleep deprivation and false memories reported two studies, but only study one will be summarized here. The study done here is to see if amount of sleep is associated to false memories. This study is a correlational study because it is looking for the association of natural occurring variables (i.e. the amount of sleep one gets). The independent variable of this study is the amount of sleep the participants had, either they were sleep deprived or not. The dependent variable is whether or not they had false memories. The participants were made up of one hundred ninety-three undergraduates from the University of California, Irvine, 76% of which were female and 24% were male. The participants were divided into two different groups based on their self-reported sleep duration only on the night prior to the study session. The participants who reported five or fewer hours of sleep were put in the restricted sleep group, those with more than five hours were put into the reference group. Neither group differed meaningfully on age, gender, race-ethnicity etc.

Most studies are about discovering the contributors of false memories. However, this study focuses on how sleep deprivation contributes to false memories even though many studies argue that sleep deprivation damages cognitive function. Their study went in detail by researching the effect encoding have during this process. They found that if a participant was sleep deprived during event encoding; he or she would increase the likelihood of falsifying memories. However, when the participant was sleep deprived after encoding had already occurred then there was no big impact on falsifying memories. These experiments are conducted on the effect of sleep deprivation contributing to false memories since false memories can have dreadful consequences.

The enriched group will be assigned to the enriched cage whilst the control group will be assigned to one of the standard cages. This experiment is a longitudinal study that will assess both the group’s cognitive flexibility by assessing them in the MWM across their lifespans in three different phases (young, mid-age and aged). To control against practice effects in the MWM for these rats, a cross-section of rats in the specific cohorts (20 young, 20 mid-age, 20 aged rats) will be used to determine any difference encountered for the practice effects in each respective phase (Rönnlund et al., 2005). Using the MWM will evaluate how aging affects cognitive flexibility and give insight into natural cognitive decline in aging. In each of the phases denoted by (Curlik et al., 2014), [young (rats are 2-4mo), mid-age (15-17mo) and aged (28-30mo)], there will be training in the MWM followed by two examining periods, acquisition then reversal (used to determine how well the rat can reacquire spatial info). The training period will last for two days in which there are three trials per day where the target platform (raised 2mm above the water to make it visible) will change quadrants every day. When placing the rat in the MWM, they will be put in another quadrant other than the target quadrant approximately 5 cm from the wall, facing the wall. In each trial, the rat

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

How often do you hear people complain about being tired all the time? Sleep deficiency has been investigated for years, but there has been no single method to explain why people nod their heads asleep in crucial times focus: during an important class lecture or even at the wheel. However, it is clear that without a good night’s rest, sleep-deprived individuals can find it difficult to pay attention, even if they want to stay awake. Thus, it becomes important to examine the underlying mechanisms that explain the negative effects of sleep loss on attention and cognitive performance. Sleep effects can be measured by alertness, which describes the overall state of the cognitive system and can be attributed to two primary components: a circadian system and a sleep homeostasis system (Åkerstedt & Folkard, 1995). The circadian system is composed of an oscillating 24-hour cycle that fluctuates in alertness throughout one day, while the homeostasis system is a gradual decline of alertness as wake time increases throughout the day, only recovering after sleep (Achermann, 2004). Attention is facilitated by alertness and is the behavioral and cognitive process of focusing on one piece of information at a time. Although it is a broad phenomenon, it can be divided into two components: vigilant attention and selective attention. Vigilant attention is a person’s ability to keep concentrating on one task, while selective attention is a person’s ability to focus distinctly on one stimuli to

However, rats injected with scopolamine and had direct placement performed more poorly than those without scopolamine, which continues to prove scopolamine’s block in spatial learning and memory (Malin et al., 2015). Other studies also prove that indeed learning navigation tasks are impaired by cholinergic blockades (Sutherland, Whishaw, and Regher, 1982). On the other hand, rats will develop a non-mapping strategy to locate the platform, which is similar to moving the hidden platform in a water maze (Buresova, Bolhuis, and Bures,

Learning is a very important aspect of humans and creatures alike. Not only is it essential to the survival and adaption into this world but it also defines who we are as individuals (Schiller et al, 2010; Tronson & Taylor, 2007). Memories from past experiences shape the people that we are today. A crucial element to learning is memory, without it we would not be able to retain information. The process of memory is very distinct and consists of several different stages: acquisition of memory, consolidation, retrieval and then either reconsolidation or extinction (Debiec & Ledoux, 2004; Diergaarde, Schoffelmeer & De Vries, 2008). As memory is such a critical aspect of learning, it is no wonder that its distinct process has become the topic of much research in the neurobiological universe (Hupbach et al, 2007; Nader & Hardt, 2009).

It is shaped like the letter T, providing the subject, typically a rodent, with a straight forward choice. T-maze is a classical experiment used to study how rodents function with memory and spatial learning by applying various stimuli [89]. The T-maze is one among a group of mazes of differing sizes and shapes. It is one of the most simple, consisting of just two turns - right or left. The maze is only able to be altered by blocking one of the two paths. The basis behind the T-maze is to place the rat at the base of the maze at the tail end. By placing a reward at one of the arm of the maze, the rat must make the choice of which path to take. The decision made by the rat can be a cause of a natural preference within the rat. A study of alternation can be performed by repeating the

What do the effects of sleep deprivation have on people? When a person does not get enough sleep, he or she is depriving his or her body of something that it needs. A delightful sleep is one of the most satisfying human experiences with a role to play in supporting a good mood and cognitive acuity as well as in promoting physiologic balance and resilience (Chittora, Jain and Suhalka). People think because they get an insufficient number of hours of sleep, they will not have an emotional impact by it. Sleep is a required need for peoples’ day to day life to be able to perform and stay healthy emotionally and physically. The effects of sleep deprivation are an issue because it affects mood, performance, and health.

The number of hours of sleep each person needs depends on many factors, including age. Infants need nearly 16 hours a day, while teenagers require about 8-9 hours on average. For most adults, 7 to 8 hours a night appears to be the best amount of sleep. Women in the first three months of pregnancy often need several more hours of sleep than usual. The quantity of rest a person needs also improves if he or she has been deprived of sleep in previous days. Getting too little sleep creates a "sleep debt," which is much like being overdrawn at a bank. Many studies make it clear that sleep deprivation is dangerous. Sleep-deprived people who are tested by using a driving simulator or by performing a hand-eye coordination task perform as badly as or worse than those who are intoxicated. Sleep deprivation also magnifies alcohol's effects on the body, so a fatigued person who drinks will become much more impaired than someone who is well-rested.

Because neurogenesis affects their memory, not their actual navigation, the transgenic and wild-type were similar. Phenotypic differences on day two made themselves apparent, where the performance in both latency and distance was significantly different between TK and WT rats; the alternate hypothesis was supported. This was an expected result, because WT rats were better able to differentiate between the spatial cues, they were also better able to remember the position of the platform. Because they could remember the platform’s general position (not exact), they took less time to locate it, and ultimately swam a shorter distance. Both day 1 and 2 were similar to the findings of studies finding a neurogenesis ablation affecting spatial memory. (ref) Unexpectedly, day 3 did not show a significant difference between the phenotypic variants in either distance, nor latency, lending support to the null hypothesis. These findings were similar to a Graves et al.’s (2013) study, where ablation of neurogenesis had no affect on spatial memory in the MWM. Ultimately, this study, attempting to give further support to the role of neurogenesis in spatial memory, causing more confusion.

Sleep deprivation is a common issue among people around the world, and everyone has or will experience it in their life. Not getting enough sleep makes it difficult for the body to function properly. Insomnia is a well-known disorder, mainly known in the United States; one in ten adults suffers from this disorder (Kloc). There are many reasons why people end up with a sleeping disorder, and the most common reason is stress. When people do not have enough sleep they behave differently, and do not make the same choices as if they were fully rested. There are four stages of sleep. The fourth stage, REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep is the most important stage of sleeping. A common side effect of BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) is sleep

Sleep is one of the things that most students can say they do not get enough of. It is a time for us to rest and for a few blissful hours hopefully forget about the stress and worries of school and life. Unfortunately, due to too much work or too much studying to do, often enough, we do not get the amount we need each night to be fully rested the next day. But we have learned to cope with the sleep deprivation by drinking coffee in the morning to wake us up. Even though we are awake, how well can we function throughout the day when we have only had less than five hours of sleep? How much does our behavior change without enough sleep?