Sleep and consciousness Flashcards
What is consciousness?
Ability of an individual to react appropriately to stimuli in the outside world
How is consciousness clinically assessed?
Using Glasgow Coma Scale: max 15 points for being awake and alert
- tests eye opening, verbal response and motor response
- so better to ask how conscious is a person instead of is that person conscious= consciousness is not an all or nothing state but a continuum
What are the stages of consciousness?
- coma (with or without reflexes present)
- unconsciousness (unarousable, but maybe only temporarily by intense stimuli)
- sleep (arousable by normal stimuli)
- drowsy wakefulness (responding in non-reflex way)
- normal wakefulness (responding to spoken/written stimuli)
- high arousal (hyper alert and fast reactivity)
What are the categories of the Glasgow scale in terms of eye opening?
- spontaneous
- to sound
- to pressure
- none
What are the categories of the Glasgow scale in terms of verbal response?
- orientated
- confused
- words
- sounds
- none
What are the categories of the Glasgow scale in terms of motor response?
- obey commands
- localising
- normal flexion
- abnormal flexion
- extension
- none
What is an electroencephalograph
- measures brain arousal
- small voltages recorded from scalp electrodes
- average thousands of nerve cells so cannot be used to measure what individual neurons are doing
What are the uses of an EEG?
- best for detecting seizure activity
- picks activity from muscles in head
What is the normal appearance of an EEG?
- high frequency low amplitude signal
- desynchronised appearance as some neurons fire out of phase with others so cancel each other out
What is the appearance of an EEG in a seizure?
Synchronous firing
- slow wave appearance with higher amplitude
- more synchronous = less conscious
- consciousness = function of desynchronization
What does sleep produce on an EEG?
- cortical neuronal synchronisation
- large amplitude slow waves which can be confused with a seizure
(SLOW WAVE SLEEP)
What is the purpose of non-REM/slow wave sleep
Maintenance and Repair
Increased growth/maintenance of immune/nervous/skeletal and muscular systems
- GH secreted
- wound repair
What is the purpose of REM sleep?
- EEG more like normal wave sleep
- memory consolidation
- removing junk and defragment memories
- coping with life stresses
What is the role of antioxidants in sleep?
- High levels of reactive oxygen species generated in the mitochondria
- metabolic rates decrease in sleep
- melatonin released from pineal gland
Where is the pineal gland?
At posterior border of 3rd ventricle
- endocrine organ
What is melatonin?
Powerful free radical scavenger
- removes free radicals that have accumulated in waking
- prevents seizures by maintaining GABA function
- glycogen brain stores increase during sleep