Wakefulness and Sleep

SP222
Rhythms of Waking and Sleeping

 How do we know when to wake up and when to sleep?

 Governed by endogenous cycles
 Endogenous – “from within”
 We generate these cycles of waking and sleeping from within
 Nature, more than nurture
 Different types of endogenous cycles:
1. Circannual – revolving around a year
2. Circadian – revolving around a day
Circadian Rhythms of Humans

 We naturally have a circadian (24 hour) cycle of sleep and wakefulness (a

biological ‘clock’)
 Sailors in nuclear submarines without natural light tend to still follow this cycle of
sleep and wakefulness
 Why do you think this is the case?
 Circadian rhythms can differ slightly across people:
1. Larks
2. Owls
Larks vs Owls
Setting and Resetting the biological clock

 Our circadian rhythms normally run on a 24-hour cycle of sleep-waking

 Sometimes, we can misadjust our internal clock
 E.g. exposing ourselves to light and stimulation until 2 am in the morning on
weekends, and then waking up at normal 7am times on Monday morning
 Nature provides us cues that helps our body set a natural rhythm, called
zeitgebers (German):
1. Light (dominant zeitgeber)
2. Temperature
Circadian Rhythms, Jet Lag, and Shift
Work
 Flying across time zones can cause disruptions to the circadian rhythm known as
jet lag
 When you fly west, you feel sleepier even though it’s the day time
 When you fly east, you feel awake even at night
 Shift work can also disrupt circadian rhythms
 Having to work evening or night shifts can disrupt the natural circadian rhythm
 People on shift work typically experience more accidents and have worse health than
those on morning work hours
Mechanism of the Biological Clock

 Our biological clock resides in a part of the hypothalamus, called the

Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN)
 Located just above the optic chiasm
 SCN provides the main control of the circadian rhythm for sleep and body
temperature
 SCN generates circadian rhythms by itself, without control from any other areas
 Even after removing the SCN from the brain, it continued to produce a circadian
rhythm of action potentials
Light and the SCN

 Because the SCN in located above the optic chiasm, a small branch of the optic
nerve (retinohypothalamic path) extends directly from the retina to the SCN
 Input in the retinohypothalamic path is not dependent on the normal receptors of
the retina (rods and cones)
 Input instead comes from special retinal ganglion cells that have their own
photopigment called melanopsin, which respond to light even without input from
rods or cones
 Placed nearer to the nose, in the periphery of the eyes
Biochemistry of the Circadian Rhythm

 Two genes that are linked to sleep:

1. Period genes
2. Timeless genes
 These genes are in charge of the production of two proteins called Per and Tim,
which start accumulating in the morning and slowly increases in levels throughout
the day
 By evening, Per and Tim levels are high, which interacts with a third protein
called Clock, which makes us feel sleepy
 The high levels of Per and Tim also sends signals to the Period and Timeless genes to
stop producing them
Biochemistry of the Circadian Rhythm

 In the evenings, with higher levels of Per and Tim, the body starts to feel sleepy
 As the body rests at night, both Period and Timeless genes stop producing Per and
Tim until levels drop significantly by next morning
 Low levels of Per and Tim in the morning results in us feeling wakeful
 A pulse of light during the night can inactivate the Tim protein
 Explains why when we’re exposed to too much blue light before sleep, we have
trouble sleeping afterwards
The role of melatonin

 The SCN regulates waking and sleeping by controlling the pineal gland (located
behind the thalamus)
 The pineal gland secretes the hormone melatonin, which influences both
circadian and circannual rhythms
 The human pineal gland secretes melatonin mostly at night, which makes us
sleepy
 Melatonin secretion starts to increase 2-3 hours bedtime
 Melatonin also feeds back to the SCN, resulting in phase-advances of the biological
clock (making you feel sleepier earlier)
 Melatonin is an antioxidant, so secretion of adequate amounts of melatonin is
healthy
Stages of Sleep and Brain Mechanisms

 Stages of sleep are measured using a polysomnography, a combination of EEG

and eye movement records
 Four stages of NREM sleep:
1. Stage 1: lightest stage of NREM sleep
 Slow eye movements, easily awoken, known as alpha stage
2. Stage 2: first actual stage of NREM sleep
 Slow eye movements stop, brain waves slow down, with occasional bursts of rapid
activity (sleep spindles) mixed with sudden large brain waves known as K-complex
3. Stage 3 and 4: deep NREM sleep
 A.k.a. ‘slow-wave sleep’, consists of delta waves, difficult to wake
REM sleep

 REM stands for ‘rapid eye-movement’

 During REM, EEG shows regular, low-voltage fast waves that indicate increased
neuronal activity
 However, muscles in the body are typically at its most relaxed during REM
 Associated with several other biological responses:
 Erections in males, vaginal moistening in females
 Heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate increases
 Mostly linked to dreams that can be remembered
 Dreams recorded during NREM phases tend to be forgotten by the next morning
Brain Functions in REM sleep

 During REM sleep, activity increased in the pons and the limbic system
(important for emotional responses)
 Activity decreased in the primary visual cortex, motor cortex, and dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex, but increased in the parietal (visual cognition) and temporal
(hearing and speech) cortex
 Cells in the pons send messages to the spinal cord to inhibit motor neurons that
control the body’s large muscles
 Also possibly explains why some people report “sleep paralysis”
Sleep cycles

 We typically cycle through the different phases of sleep each night

 Alpha > Stage 2 > Stage 3 and 4 > REM > Stage 3 and 4 > Stage 2
 Being sleep deprived puts us into REM sleep much faster than normal, leading
scientists to believe that REM sleep plays an important role
 Maybe in memory consolidation
 People who are depressed go into REM sleep quicker than non-depressed
individuals
Brain Mechanisms of Wakefulness and
Arousal
 Several brain structures are responsible for keeping us awake and aroused:
1. Pontomesencephalon
 Receive input from many sensory systems and releases acetylcholine and glutamate,
which helps to maintain arousal during wakefulness
2. Locus coeruleus
 A small structure of the pons that releases norepinephrine throughout the cortex
 Reacts to meaningful events that produce emotional arousal
3. Basal forebrain
 Has neurons that are responsible for staying awake
 Receives a peptide neurotransmitter from the hypothalamus called orexin, which is
crucial for staying awake
Functions of sleep

 Several postulated functions of sleep:

1. Energy conservation
2. Attention and concentration
3. Memory
Energy Conservation

 Theorizes that sleep’s original purpose was to conserve energy

 During sleep, a mammal’s body temperature drops by 1-2 degrees Celsius, which
saves a lot of energy
 Predators tend to sleep more than prey
 Eating meat is more nutritious than eating grass, so predators don’t need to spend too
much time eating
 Prey can’t sleep too much due to their food, and because they run the risk of being
eaten
 Sleep is similar to a mini-hibernation
Attention and Concentration

 Sleep-deprivation is tied to reduced attention and concentration

 Release of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA normally increases during sleep
 Not sleeping causes neurons to store GABA, resulting in impaired concentration
 One night of sleep-deprivation activates the immune system
 Your body reacts to lack of sleep similarly to illness
 Sleep-deprivation is also linked to increased depression
Sleep and Memory

 Sleep has been found to aid memory

 Young adults deprived of sleep performed significantly worse on memory tasks
 People who learn a new task or information, then immediately fall asleep, actually
remember the information better and have improved memory
 Analysis of brain activity found that the same areas of the brain that activate
during learning also activate during sleep
 Sleep spindle waves indicate an exchange of information between the cerebral
cortex and the thalamus, which typically increases after learning something new
Functions of REM sleep

 Several hypotheses of function of REM sleep:

1. Important for memory
2. Provides sufficient oxygen for the cornea of the eyes
 Eye movement moves the liquid in the cornea, which hels circulate oxygen
Biological Perspectives on Dreaming

 Two theories for why we dream:

1. Activation-synthesis hypothesis
2. Clinico-anatomical hypothesis
Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis

 A dream is the brain’s effort to make sense of sparse and distorted information
 Dreams typically begin with PGO (pons-geniculate-occipital) waves in the pons,
which activates some parts of the cortex and not others
 The cortex them combines this haphazard input to synthesize a storyline in a
dream
Clinico-Anatomical Hypothesis

 Derived from clinical studies of patients with brain damage

 Similar to the Activation-Synthesis theory, it suggests that dreams begin with
stimuli that are generated from different parts of the brain combined with recent
memories
 However, it regards dreams as thinking that takes place under unusual
circumstances
 One of these unusual circumstances is the fact that our body’s movements are
inhibited, so dreams are no longer “constrained” by what our bodies can or can’t do
 Explains why we can fly, float, or do anything in our dreams
Sleep disorders

 Insomnia
 Sleep apnea
 Narcolepsy
 Periodic Limb Movement disorder
 REM Behaviour disorder
 Night Terrors, Sleep talking, and sleepwalking
Insomnia

 Inability to fall asleep

 Can be caused by environmental factors (noise, temperature, stress, pain, diet), or
biological factors (tumours, depression, anxiety)
 Some cases of insomnia is due to drug dependency
 Patients who take sleeping pills for long-term develop insomnia when the pills are
removed
Sleep Apnea

 A type of insomnia, linked to difficulty breathing when asleep

 Patients with sleep apnea have breathless periods of ~1 minute where they wake
up gasping for breath
 Prolonged sleep apnea has been linked to loss of neurons and brain functions due
to lack of sleep
 Causes of sleep apnea:
1. Genetics
2. Hormones
3. Old-age deterioration of the brain
4. Obesity
Narcolepsy

 A condition of frequent periods of sleepiness during the day

 1/1000 people have narcolepsy
 Linked to the neurotransmitter orexin – narcoleptics do not have the hypothalamic
cells to produce and release orexin
 Four symptoms of narcolepsy:
1. Gradual or sudden attacks of sleepiness
2. Occasional cataplexy – weakening of muscles while the person is awake, normally
triggered by strong emotions
3. Sleep paralysis – inability to move while falling asleep or waking up
4. Hypnagogic hallucinations – dreamlike experiences that are difficult to distinguish
from reality
Periodic Limb Movement Disorder

 Characterized by repeated involuntary movement of the legs and sometimes arms

during sleep
 Some people with this disorder kick once every 20 to 30 seconds for minutes or
hours at a time
 Tranquilizers are sometimes used to help suppress the movements of the
individual during sleep
REM Behaviour Disorder

 In normal individuals, major muscles are relaxed during REM sleep

 Individuals with REM behavioural disorder are able to move their muscles during
REM sleep, and seem to act out their dreams
 Frequently dream about defending themselves from attack, and kick, punch, and
jump around in their sleep
 Mostly occurs in older people, especially older men with brain diseases (e.g.
Parkinson’s)
 Suggests that cells in the pons responsible for inhibiting spinal neurons are
damaged and no longer do so
Night Terrors, Sleep talking, and
Sleepwalking
 Night terrors – experiences of intense anxiety where the person awakens screaming in terror
 Happens during NREM sleep, more common in children
 Sleep talking
 Common and harmless
 Occurs in both REM and NREM sleep
 Sleepwalking
 Runs in families, occurs mostly in children, and about 1-2% of adults
 More common in sleep deprived people, or those who drink alcohol
 More common in Stage 3 or 4 sleep
 Deeds done during sleepwalking are poorly planned and not remembered
 Sexsomnia – engaging in sexual behaviour while asleep