Exam 2 sleep Flashcards
What is sleep?
Periodic, natural loss of consciousness that differs from being in a coma, anesthetized, or passed out.
From an evolutionary standpoint, why do we sleep?
helps us survive
What is Process C?
This is a biological clock in your brain that regulates alertness based on the time of day.
What is the role of sunlight in Process C?
Sunlight “sets” your biological clock and causes a decrease in the production of melatonin
What is the role of darkness in Process C?
It causes an increase in the production of melatonin
What is the role of melatonin in Process C?
To signal the brain it is dark and time to go to bed
What is the suprachiasmatic nucleus, and what role does it play in Process C?
In the hypothalamus and detects light impulses traveling through the optic chiasm on their way to the vision center of your brain.
It also influences melatonin release in the pineal gland.
What is Process S?
Caused by the accumulation of the neurotransmitter adenosine.
Makes you sleepy when enough has been accumulated.
What is the role of adenosine in Process S?
As your awake, adenosine builds up in your brain and sleeping is the only way to get rid of it. This lowers the influence of wakeful areas of the brian
What does adenosine do
it lowers the influence of brain regions that promote wakefulness and increases the influence of sleep-inducing regions.
How does caffeine affect Process S?
Caffeine is an adenosine antagonist that blocks adenosine receptors, so it prevents adenosine from making you sleepy
What is a caffeine crash?
When the caffeine is gone and no longer blocking adenosine, you experiance a massive does of adenosine (because it doesnt stop building up) which causes intense drowsiness
Why do you feel a surge of wakefulness in the morning after staying up all night?
Because you were flighting process S (adenosine) but at a certin point in the morning, process C kicks in with the light and causes alertness
How does an EEG work?
Electrodes are placed on the scalp and it measures electrical activity in the brain.
It records the electrical activity of large groups of neurons in the cerebral cortex
produces a plot of waves of activity in the brain that can be analyzed.
EEG full name is
Electroencephalogram
What happens during Stage 1 and Stage 2 sleep?
light sleep
stage 1 you are asleep but easy to wake up
stage 2 your body is preparing for deep sleep (brain waves have lower frequency and higher amplitude)
What happens during Stage 3 sleep
Deep sleep
It’s difficult to wake up from stage 3 sleep. You will be groggy
Has low frequency, high amplitude delta waves. Thousands of neurons are synchronized.
Why is it important to get Stage 3 sleep?
Allows different parts of the brain to communicate more effectively.
Memory moves from short term to long-term storage.
Essential for feeling rested, bodily recovery, and growth.
What happens during Stage 4 or REM sleep?
Your brain waves resemble Stage 1.
Your eyes will dart around rapidly.
You become more physiologically aroused
Motor cortex is active but your paralyzed
you dream
How do you cycle through these stages while you sleep?
Your sleep gets deeper as time progresses, but then you’ll shift to REM. You’ll experience REM sleep and then return to deeper sleep.
REM sleep increases the longer you sleep.
Each cycle takes about 90 minutes,
What is sleep paralysis? What are the symptoms?
You’re awake, but You have loss of muscle control associated with REM sleep (paralysis)
and You are dreaming, which can lead to terrifying visions (hallucinations)
What is sleepwalking?
Involves getting up and performing activties while in Stage 3 deep sleep
What did Freud say about dreams?
symbolic representations of your emotional problems.
What are dreams?
A sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person’s mind during REM sleep.
What parts of the brain become more or less active during dreams?
visual, motor, emotional, and autobiographical memory regions of the brain.
Why can’t you remember your dreams?
The neurotransmitter associated with memory are barely active during REM
Why are dreams so weird?
There’s decreased activity in the frontal lobes (logical rational thought) of your brain when you are dreaming
What do people dream about?
Ordinry events and everyday experiances, mostly anxiety or misfortune
Why do people dream? What are the proposed explanations?
Neural static: our brain is trying to interpret random neurons firing.
Improved Memory: dreams help us consolidate each day’s memories.
Brain stimulation: dreams help develop and preserve neural pathways.
Evolution: our brain is trying to prepare us for worst-case scenarios.
Overnight therapy: dreams help us remove negative emotions from distressing memories.
How does getting enough sleep help your body?
Helps us restore and repair our body and supports growth
How does getting enough sleep help your mind?
Promotes memory and enhances creativity
What is a sleep debt?
The difference between the amount of sleep someone needs and the amount of sleep they actually get.
How does sleep affect your cognition? How does it have this effect?
-low sleep imparies concentration productivity and memory consoildiation, 40% decrease in their ability to learn, and lowers the abilioty of the hippocampus to create memories
How does sleep affect your emotions? How does it have this effect?
less sleep sleep predicts more anger, irritability, and relationship conflict.
because the frontal lobes are less able to regulate the impulses of the amygdala causing swings in emotions
What makes having a sleep debt especially challenging?
People sleep deprived in studies often don’t recognize that they are impaired
And people can adapt to having a chronic sleep debt.
