history and terms Flashcards
homeostasis
an organism needs to maintain internal stability in the face of environmental perturbations
dynamic balance
the system looks stable and unchanging, but is in fact constantly adapting to changes both in its internal states and the environment
what is the ‘rich cognitive life’ hypothesis in sleep psychology?
sleep is not a state of oblivion - it is active and dynamic
compare the homeostatic theory and the cognitive theory
- Sleep lets us conserve energy/thermoregulate
VS.- Sleep is allows us to downscale the synaptic strength of different brain connections made during the day so that we have room for more cognitive function the next day (brain plasticity)
what are the three classic states of consciousness?
wake, deep sleep, rem
wake
awareness of self and env, fast reflexes, spontaneous and intentional mental activity
deep sleep
slow wave, delta, nrem, no explicit awareness, high threshold of reactivity, simple mental activity, tendency towards amnesia
REM
: awareness of dream, sometimes awareness of sleeping (lucid dream), low threshold of awareness, spontaneous and intentional mental activity in the dream
what were the views on sleep in antiquity?
EMPEDOCLES AND PARMENIDES: sleep cools us down because we get too hot in the day
PLATO: theory of vision: turn our vision inward (inward fire) to stabilize “inward motions” in sleep
ARISTOTLE: sleep is a seizure produced by ‘exhalations’ of ingested foods rising to the brain to cool
what is the hypotoxin theory (legendre and pieron experiment)
buildup of toxins in the day makes us sleepy
Legendre and Pieron made non sleepy dogs sleepy by giving them the blood of sleepy dogs (1907)
biological theory and jean jacques d’ortous
jean jacques d’ortous saw that a heloptrop plant opened and closed at particular times even in absence of daylight
who first discovered REM sleep?
aserinksy and kleitman saw that people move their eyes during sleep - hypothesized that they were dreaming
