The Neuroscience of Sleep Flashcards
What does sleep pressure turn into?
Sleep debt
What are the two main types of sleep?
REM and SWS
What is REM?
Sleep cycle that occurs in 90 min cycles and alternates with 4 additional (NREM) stages and looks a lot like wakefulness with emotional processing
What is SWS?
The deepest NREM cycle that is important for memory consolidation and usually occurs in the beginning of the night
What kind of oscillations in SWS?
Low frequency oscillations
What neurotransmitters are important for sleep cycles?
Serotonine (5-HT) norephinephrine (NE), acetylcholine (Ach), and cortisol
What NTs are involved in SWS?
Serotonin (5-HT) and Norepinephrine (NE)
What are sleep spindles?
Fast spurts of activity that help us to know that someone is asleep
What are k-complexes?
Large peaks in brain waves that help us to know that someone is alseep
In what stage do sleep spindles and k-complexes occur?
Stage 2
Which sleep stage is important for implicit or procedural memories?
REM
Which sleep stage is important for explicit memories?
SWS
How does SWS help episodic memory?
Undergo initial consolidation in short time frame
What brain structure do emotional memories rely on?
The amygdala
Difference between remember and know?
Remember: recollection of context, Know: familiarity
What does sleep do to memories?
Consolidation - Transforms into representations that can be more useful than literal representation or experience
Where does sleep increase activity/connections?
Between amygdala and ventromedial PF cortex and the HC
Do all kinds of memories rely on all sleep stages?
Yes, there is an oversimplification and sleep stage dependency may depend on other aspects of the task
Evidence for neurophysical and neurochemical sleep stages not being perfect
Electrophysiological events overlap sleep stages w/o perfect correlation
What sleep stage does cortisol peak with?
REM
What does the elevation of cortisol impair?
Episodic memory
What kind of memory is REM linked with?
Procedural/implicit memories and emotional episodic memories
What kind of memory is SWS linked with?
Episodic memory
What stage do delta waves occur in?
SWS
What is process S?
Building sleep pressure
What is process C?
Fighting process S
What is delayed phased sleep syndrome?
Not being able to sleep until late at night
How does a coma differ from sleep?
There is no structure in the brain waves
What is sleep a collection of?
Completely different, active brain states
What sleep stage is best for napping?
Stage 2 NREM
What do the brain waves in REM look like?
Looks like stage 1/ active wakefulness
When is acetylcholine (ACh) present?
Active wakefulness, quiet wakefulness, REM
When is norepinephrine (NE) and serotonin (5-HT) present?
Active wakefulness, quiet wakefulness, and SWS
What brain areas are active in REM sleep?
Parahippocampal cortex, hippocampus, amygdala, and anterior cingulate
What does the amygdala do in REM sleep?
Stress and fear emotion to remember negative situations
What does the anterior cingulate do during REM?
Regulates the amygdala
What structure is completely turned off during REM?
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, allowing for creative dreams
What does the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex do?
It is responsible for rational thought
What brain structures interact during SWS?
Hippocampus and neocortex
Results of the finger tapping skill?
Typing of numeric sequence improved 10% more when sleep occurred compared to those who stayed awake
What is the finger tapping task?
Tapping of numeric sequence with fingers (4-1-3-4-2)
What is the selective consolidation benefit?
Doing one thing particularly well that improves with sleep
What does sleep focus on from an emotional standpoint?
The negative parts at the expense of background information
What are creative intrusions?
Thinking of creative random words in list after sleeping
Who is Friedrish Kekule and what did he do?
He had a creative intrusion while sleeping about the snake biting its own tail to have an insight about benzene
Who is Otto Loewi and what did he do?
Had a creative intrusion about chemical transmission that led to a nobel prize.
What is transitive inference?
Being able to infer a pattern with premise pairs or the strange number pattern
When did transitive inference remarkably improve?
With sleep
What is the remote associates test?
Being able to find a word that goes with each of the words in a list
Which sleep stage improved the remote associates test?
REM
What does positive emotion do to insight?
Increase performance significantly
Can sleep help with normalizing mood?
Yes, emotional episodic memory correlates with REM because of the suppression of the amygdala
What happens to the amygdala when sleep deprived?
Hyperactivated which leads to negative memory
What does sleep do to connectivity in emotional memory retrieval network during retrieval of emotional objects?
Strengthens connectivity
Where does REM sleep occur in the night?
Second half of the night
