We spend nearly one-third of our lives asleep

crucial for concentration, memory, coordination, and even emotional health

sleep
Without this, people have trouble focusing and responding quickly when they need
to, such as when they’re behind the wheel of a car sleep
loss of this can have as great an effect on performance as drinking alcohol
sleep
lack of this increases the risk of a variety of health problems, including diabetes,
cardiovascular disease and heart attacks, stroke, depression, high blood pressure,
obesity, and infections sleep
one of the great mysteries of modern neuroscience sleep
Sleep stages are accompanied by daily rhythms in hormones, body
temperature, and other functions.
Although sleep appears to be a passive and restful time, it actually involves a
highly active and well-scripted interplay of brain circuits, resulting in sleep’s various
stages. These stages were discovered in the 1950s through experiments using what
equipment electroencephalography (EEG) to examine human brain waves.
EEG is used to study what Brain Waves
Sleep Researchers also measured movements of the eyes and the limbs.
Researchers found that each night, over the course of the first hour or so of sleep,
the brain progresses through a series of stages during which brain waves slow down.
This period of slow wave sleep is accompanied by relaxation of the muscles and the
eyes. Heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature all fall. If awakened during this
time, most people recall only fragmented thoughts, not active dreams.
Only fragmented thoughts when awakened in what sleep deep slow wave sleep
characterized by neocortical EEG waves similar to those observed during waking REM
sleep
paralysis of the body’s muscles Atonia
Over the next half hour or so, brain activity alters drastically, from deep slow wave
sleep to rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, characterized by neocortical EEG waves
similar to those observed during waking. Paradoxically, the fast, waking- like EEG
activity is accompanied by atonia, or paralysis of the body’s muscles. During REM
Sleep what muscles remain active Only the muscles that allow breathing and control
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eye movements remain active.
When does active dreaming take place During REM sleep, active dreaming
takes place.
Heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature become much more variable. Men
often have erections during this stage. What is the sleep stage called REM sleep
The first REM period usually lasts 10 to 15 minutes.
During the night, these cycles of slow wave and REM sleep alternate, with the slow
wave sleep becoming less deep and the REM periods more prolonged until waking
occurs.
Infants sleep up to 18 hours per day, and they spend much more time in deep
slow wave sleep.
As children mature, they spend less time asleep and less time in deep slow
wave sleep.
difficulty falling asleep insomnia.
the point of collapse, closing the
electrodes placed around the head airway. The individual has difficulty
record electrical activity of the human breathing and wakes up without
brain in response to a variety of stimuli entering the deeper stages of slow
and activities — even sleep. What is this wave sleep. Obstructive sleep
procedure EEG apnea
Insomnia medicines short-acting
sedatives and sedating antidepressant
drugs

Although a variety of short-acting

sedatives and sedating antidepressant
drugs are available to help, none
produces a truly natural and restful
sleep state because they tend to
suppress the deeper stages of slow
wave sleep.
This occurs as sleep deepens and the
airway muscles in the throat relax to
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 small mask that fits over the nose to
provide an airstream under pressure
during sleep is used to help with
Obstructive sleep apnea
Periodic limb movements of sleep are
intermittent jerks of the legs or arms
that occur as the individual enters slow
wave sleep. These movements can
cause arousal from sleep. This occurs
when muscles fail to become paralyzed
during REM sleep, As a result, people
literally act out their dreams by getting
up and moving around REM
behavior disorder
Jerrky movements and REM Behavior
sleep disorders are more common in
people with Parkinson’s disease, and
both can be treated with drugs for
Parkinson’s or with a benzodiazepine
called clonazepam.
Wakefulness is maintained by
several brain systems, each regulating
different aspects of this state. Many of
the systems are located in the
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the switching mechanisms
controlling the transitions into
sleep, particularly REM sleep, do
not work properly. This problem is
due to the loss of nerve cells in the
lateral hypothalamus that contain
the neurotransmitter orexin (also
known as hypocretin). People have
sleep attacks during the day, in
which they suddenly fall asleep.
Name the disease Narcolepsy
People with narcolepsy tend to enter
REM sleep very quickly as well and
may even enter a dreaming state while
still partially awake, a condition known
as hypnagogic hallucination.
They also have attacks during which
they lose muscle tone — a state similar
to what occurs during REM sleep but
instead happens while they are awake.
These attacks of paralysis, known as
cataplexy, can be triggered by
emotional experiences, even by
hearing a funny joke.
upper brainstem, where nerve
cells using the neurotransmitters
acetylcholine, norepinephrine,
serotonin, and glutamate connect with
the forebrain.
Nerve cells containing orexin, in the
hypothalamus, are also important in
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 wakefulness and their loss causes
narcolepsy.
Hypothalamic nerve cells containing
the neurotransmitter histamine play a
key role as well. Activation of the
thalamus and the basal forebrain by
acetylcholine is particularly important in
maintaining activity in the cerebral
cortex and consciousness. This level of
alertness is reflected in an activated,
low-voltage EEG.
During non-REM sleep, these
arousing systems become much less
active, and the transmission of
information from the senses through
the thalamus is curtailed.
Consciousness lessens, and
wakefulness gives way to the slow
wave pattern typical of the first stage
of sleep. During this state, there is
active suppression of arousal systems
by a group of nerve cells in the
hypothalamus, called the
ventrolateral preoptic (VLPO)
nucleus.
The cells in the VLPO contain the
inhibitory neurotransmitters galanin
and GABA.
Damage to the VLPO nucleus
produces irreversible insomnia.
The state of REM sleep is
characterized by an internally activated
34 Brain Facts | sensing, thinking, and behaving
brain and an activated EEG — but with
external input suppressed.
Internal activation during REM
comes from a cyclically active
REM sleep generator made up of
neurons in the brainstem.
Signals from these neurons cause
the forebrain to become excited and
lead to the rapid eye movements and
muscle suppression — hallmark signs of
this state.
In the absence of external input,
forebrain excitation from internal
sources is the driving force behind the
vivid dreams experienced during REM
sleep. Interestingly, our motor cortex
nerve cells fire as rapidly during REM
sleep as they do during waking
movement, a fact that explains why
movement can coincide with dreams.
The periodic recurrence of REM
sleep about every 90 minutes during
sleep is thought to be caused by the
on-off switching of REM-
generating neurons, which produce
acetylcholine and glutamate, and REM-
suppressive neurons, which produce
norepinephrine, serotonin, and GABA.
REM-generating neurons, which
produce acetylcholine and
glutamate
REM-suppressive neurons, which
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produce norepinephrine, serotonin,
and GABA.
The system that makes us feel
sleepy the circadian system (time
of day or night) and how long we have
been awake.
circadian timing system is regulated
Wakefulness is maintained by activity
in two systems of neurons, shown in
green and red. The green pathway
shows neurons that make the
neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the
brainstem, while the red pathway is in
the forebrain. The brainstem arousal
center supplies the acetylcholine for
the thalamus and brainstem, and the
forebrain center supplies the cerebral
cortex. Activation in these centers
alone can create rapid eye
movement sleep. Activation of other
neurons that make the
neurotransmitters norepinephrine,
serotonin, and histamine, shown in the
blue pathways, is needed for waking.
Sleep studies were done on the
fly, Drosophila melanogaster.
The suprachiasmatic nucleus also
receives input directly from the retina
the clock can be reset by light so
that it remains linked to the outside
34 Brain Facts | sensing, thinking, and behaving
by the suprachiasmatic nucleus, a
small group of nerve cells
in the hypothalamus that acts as a
master clock. These cells express clock
proteins, which go through a
biochemical cycle
world’s day-night cycle.
In addition, the suprachiasmatic
nucleus provides signals to an adjacent
brain area, called the
subparaventricular nucleus, which
in turn contacts the dorsomedial
nucleus of the hypothalamus.
The dorsomedial nucleus then contacts
the ventrolateral preoptic nucleus and
the orexin neurons in the lateral
hypothalamus.
It is these neurons that directly regulate
sleep and arousal orexin neurons
Orexin provides an
excitatory signal to the
arousal system, particularly to the
norepinephrine neurons.
fruit selective stimulation of orexin
neurons by artificially inserted
receptors sensitive to fiberoptic light
pulses — a process referred to as
optogenetic stimulation —
produces arousal.
This arousal is mediated by
orexin activation of norepinephrine
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 neurons in the locus coeruleus. throughout the cortex.
Orexin activation plays a critical role The increased levels of adenosine
in preventing abnormal serve the purpose of slowing
transitions into REM sleep during down cellular activity and
the day, as occurs in narcolepsy. diminishing arousal. Adenosine
levels then decrease during sleep.
These studies of adenosine
In experiments with mice, in which the
prompted examination of the
gene for the neurotransmitter orexin
compound adenosine triphosphate
was experimentally removed, the
(ATP), the cellular energy source that
animals became narcoleptic. In
powers nerve cells in the brain.
humans with narcolepsy, the orexin
Brain adenosine may be produced
levels in the brain and spinal fluid are
by ATP breakdown in the course of
abnormally low.
the high brain activity that takes place
The second system regulating
during wakefulness.
sleepiness is the homeostatic system,
Since nerve cell activity decreases
which responds to progressively longer
and adenosine levels decline in
wake periods by increasing the urge to
non- REM sleep, the logical
sleep. The subjective sense of the
assumption is that ATP increases during
increasing need to sleep coinciding with
sleep.
increasing wakefulness suggests that
studies in animals found that brain
there might be a brain physiological
ATP levels soared during the initial
parallel; that is, the longer a person is
hours of non-REM sleep.
awake, the greater the likelihood of an
Because ATP is needed to produce
increase in sleep-inducing factor(s).
adenosine, which is essential for
Evidence now suggests that one
wakefulness, it makes sense that ATP is
important sleep factor is the
produced during sleep. This finding
inhibitory neurochemical adenosine.
also supports the commonly held
notion that sleep is necessary for
With prolonged wakefulness,
providing restorative energy.
increasing levels of adenosine
are evident in the brain, initially in
the basal forebrain and then

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Society for NeuroScieNce sensing, thinking, and behaving | Brain Facts 35