Understanding the Intricacies of the Human Sleep Cycle

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Sleep is one of the very few biological urges beyond our control. We as humans value our periods of sleep and dread the moments when sleep is interpreted. Sleep can be defined as the state of mind when we go through muscle relaxation, low sensory activity, and a reduced interaction with our surroundings (Goldstein 2014). The brain creates a sleep-wake cycle of approximately 24 hours, even in an unchanging environment. It is important to ask, what exactly occurs when we sleep? Throughout sleep, we go through various stages that are different based on different aspects such as brain activity and heart rate. Each cycle of sleep lasts from 1.5 to 2 hours and the cycles have 4 different stages of sleep within 2 sleep stages; non rapid eye …show more content…

The word paradoxical is defined as being self-contradictory; which can related to paradoxical sleep because this form of sleep has characteristics of both deep and light sleep. Paradoxical sleep is more commonly known as Rapid Eye Movement sleep (REM sleep). During REM sleep, the heart rate, breathing rates, and brain activity are more irregular, in comparison to the other stages of sleep (Mascetti 2011) . Characteristics of Rapid Eye Movement sleep includes facial twitches and eye movements. The sleep timeline consists of stages 1-4 in sequential order, but after 1 hour of sleep, you will cycle back to stage 3, stage 2, and then Rapid Eye Movement sleep (Goldstein 2014). Rapid Eye Movement sleep consists of a high density of Ponto-geniculo-occipital (PGO) waves. These waves begin in the pons, then appear in the lateral geniculate, and finally the occipital cortex. PGO waves are patterns of high amplitude electrical potentials. PGO waves are in sync with the movement of eyes in the REM sleep …show more content…

A deprivation of REM sleep contributes to increased levels of stress and anxiety, as well as feeling emotions related to depression. This impacts the neurogenic environment in the hippocampus, decreasing the growth and development of neurons in the dentate gyrus. Suzanna Becker and her colleagues planned an experiment to test if adult subjects who tested low on a BDI test (used to help diagnosis depression), would perform well on a recognition task. In the task, the subjects must pair objects viewed during various trials with other identical objects. However, the subjects will also view objects that are similar in appearance, but not identical to previously viewed images (Becker 2009). The task was to successfully pair together the identical images. Those who tested high on the BDI test, were less successful in recognizing similar images, versus the identical. A flaw in this experiment was the relatively small sample size used; only 50 adult subjects were used (Becker

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