Wakefulness
➔ Light is by far the dominant
Rhythms of Waking and Sleeping
Research as early as that of Curt Richer
(1922) implied that the body generates
its own cycles of activity and inactivity.
Endogenous Rhythms
Endogenous circannual rhythm
➔ Endogenous means “generated
from within”
➔ Circannual comes from the Latin
words circum (about) and annum
(year)
➔ Rhythm that prepares animals for
seasonal changes
Endogenous circadian rhythms
➔ Circadian comes from the Latin
circum (about) and dies (day)
➔ Last about a day
➔ Activities correlates mainly with this
rhythms
➔ Does not easily adjust to more
severe departures from a 24-hour
schedule
➔ Affects more than just waking and
sleeping but also eating, drinking,
urination, hormone secretion,
metabolism, sensitivity to drugs, and
mood/emotion
◆ The average young adult's
most pleasant mood is in the
late afternoon or early
evening and the lease is
around 5 to 7 a.m.
Setting and Resetting the Biological Clock
Zeitgeber (tsite-gay-ber)
➔ Stimulus that resets that circadian
rhythm
➔ Meaning “time-giver”
zeitgeber for land animals while
tides are for the marine animals
➔ Include exercise, arousal of any
kind, meals and the temperature of
the environment
➔ Social stimuli are ineffective unless
they use exercise or other vigorous
activity
Jet Lag
→ disruption of circadian rhythms due to
crossing time zones
● Most people find it easier to adjust to
crossing time zones going west than
east
○ Going west: phase-delay
our circadian rhthyms
○ Going east: phase-advance
our circadian rhythms
● Often leads to stress that elevates
blood levels of the adrenal hormone
cortisol
○ Damage neurons in the
hippocampus (brain area
important for memory)
○ Example: flight attendants
Shift Work
➔ Night-shift workers have more
accidents than day-shift workers
➔ Night-shift workers have great
difficulty adjusting their circadian
rhythm
➔ People adjust best to night work if
they sleep in a very dark room
during the day and work under very
bright lights at night
➔ Short-wavelength (bluish) light helps
to reset the circadian rhythm better
than long-wavelength light does
 circadian rhythms of action
Morning People and Evening People potentials
● A single isolated SCN cell can
Morning people (larks)
maintain a circadian rhythm,
● Awaken early, reach their peak of
although interactions among cells
productivity early and become less
sharpen the accuracy
alert later in the day
● Mutation in one gene causes
● Most impaired when working the
hamsters’ SCN to produce a 20-hour
night shift
instead of 24-hour rhythm
Evening people (owls)
● Warm up more slowly, both literally
and figuratively, reaching their peak
in the late afternoon or evening
● Most impaired when working the
morning shift

➔ Depends on: age, genetics and

several environmental factors,
including artificial light

Mechanisms of the Biological Clock

Biological clock
➔ Curt Richter introduced this concept:
Greater activity in SCN neurons of a rat injected
that the brain generates its own with radioactive 2-deoxyglucose during the day
rhythms
➔ A biological clock is insensitive to
most forms of interference
➔ The biological clock is a hardy,
robust mechanism

The Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN)

➔ the main driver of rhythms for sleep
and body temperature
➔ Part of the hypothalamus
➔ After damage to the SCN, body’s
rhythms become erratic Less activity when Injected at night

● Generates circadian rhythms in a

genetically controlled manner
● If disconnected from the rest of the
brain/body and maintained tissue
culture, they continue to produce a

Sagittal section through a human brain showing
the location of the SCN and the pineal gland.
How Light Resets the SCN
Retinohypothalamic path
→ small branch of the optic nerve from the
retina to the SCN
→ alterns the SCN’s settings
Melanopsin
● A special population of retinal
ganglion cells that have their own
photopigment
● Receive some input from rods and
cones
● Located mainly near the nose, from
which they see toward the periphery
● They respond to the overall average
amount of light, not for
instantaneous changes in light
● Respond mainly to short-wavelength
blue light
➔ Exposure to television, video games,
computers, and so forth, all of which
emit mostly short-wavelength light,
tends to phase-delay the circadian
rhythm and make it difficult to fall
asleep at the usual time
The Biochemistry of the Circadian Rhythm
Drosophila (fruit fly)
Two genes responsible for a circadian
rhythm:
● Period (PER)
● Timeless (TIM)
➔ Produce the proteins PER and TIM
➔ Promote sleep and inactivity
Morning
- PER and TIM start at low
concentration and increases during
the day as they increase synthesis
of the proteins.
- Protein concentrations lag behind
because the process takes time
At night
- PER and TIM concentrations are
hight but the RNA concentrations
are declining
Mammals
- Mutations in the genes producing
PER proteins lead to alterations of
sleep schedules
- Have a circadian rhythm
shorter than 24 hours
- Get sleepy early in the
evening and wake up early
- Look forward to times when
they can go to bed early
- Sleep impairments and depression
are closely linked
Melatonin
➔ The hormone that pineal gland
releases
➔ Widespread chemical found in
nearly all animals (except sponges)
➔ For diurnal: Increases sleepiness
➔ For nocturnal: increases
wakefulness
 ➔ Helps control the onset of puberty
and bodily adjustments to changes
of season (like hibernation)

Secretion
● Starts to increase about 2 or 3 hours
before bedtime
● Taking a melatonin pill in the vening
has little effect on sleepiness
because the pineal gland produces
melatonin at that time
● It shifts the circadian rhythm such
that the person starts to become
sleepy earlier than usual the next
day
Stages of Sleep and Brain Stages of Sleep
Mechanisms Electroencephalograph (EEG)
- Records an average of the electrical
potentioals of the cells and fibers in
the breain areas nearest to each
electrode on the scalp
Sleep and Other Interruptions of - Record rises or falls when most cells
Consciousness do the same thing at the same time
- Enables brain researches to monitor
Sleep
brain activity during sleep
- state that the brain actively
produces, characterized by
Polysomnograph
decreased activity and decreased
- A combination of EEF and eye-
response to stimuli
movement records
Coma
Alpha waves
- An extended period of
- Characterisitc of relaxation, not of all
unconsciousness caused by head
wakefulness
truma, stroke, or disease; has a low
level of brain activity and little/no
response to stimuli

Vegetative state
- Alternates between periods of sleep
and moderate arousal
- During the more aroused state, the
person shows no awareness of
surroundings and no purposeful
behavior
- Breathing is more regular and a
painful stimulus produces at least
the autonomic responses of
increased heart rate, breathing, and
sweating The top line is the EEG from one lectrode on the scalp. The
middle line is a record of eye movements. The bottom line is
a time marker, indicating 1-second units.
Minimally conscious state
- One stage higher, with brief periods K-complex
of purposeful actions and a limited - A sharp wave associated with
amount of speech comprehension temporary inhibition of neuronal
firing
Brain death
- A condition with no sign of brain Sleep spindle
activity and no response to any - Burst of 12- to 14-Hz waves for at
stimulus least half a second.
 - Result from oscillating interactions
between cells in the thalamus and
the cortex
- Increase in number after new
learning and the number of sleep
spindles correlates positively with
improvements in certain types of
memory
- Represent activity related to the
consolidation of memory
- Amount of spindle activity correlates
more than 0.7 with nonverbal tests
of IQ
Slow-wave sleep
- Heart rate, breathing rate, and brain
activity decrease
- Slow, large-amplitude waves
become more common
- Stage 3 sleep has few slow waves
while stage 4 has more of them
- Indicates that the neuronal activity is
highly synchronized
- Input to cerebral cortex is greatly
inhibited and most cells synchronize
their activity
Paradoxical or REM Sleep
Paradoxical sleep
- Discovered by Michael Jouvet
(1960)
- Deep sleep in some ways and light
in others
- “Apparently self-contradictory”
Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep
- Nathaniel Kleitman and Eugene
Aserinsky
- Periods of rapid eye movements
occur during sleep
- Synonymous with Jouvet’s
paradoxial sleep
- REM Sleep: humans
- Paradoxical sleep: species that lack
eye movements
Non-REM (NREM) sleep
- Stages other than the REM
● EEG shows irregular, low-voltage
fast waves (increased neuronal
activity)
● Rem sleep is light and similar to
stage 1 except for the eye
movement
● Postural muscles of the body are
more relaxed
● REM is deep sleep
● Also associated with erections and
vaginal moistening
● Heart rate, blood pressure, breathing
rate, and facial twitches flunctuate
during REM
● REM sleep combines aspect of deep
sleep, light sleep, and features that
are difficult to classify as deep or
light
● The amount of REM depends on
time of day more than how long you
have been asleep
● Pattern of sleep stages varies as a
function of age, health, and other
factors
● Frequency of awakening correlates
with loss of cells in the
hypothalamus and with a tendency
toward cognitive decline
 Older adult has less slow-wave sleep and more
frequent awakenings

Brain Mechanisms of Wakefulness, Arousal,

and Sleep
Brain Structures of Arousal and Attention
● A cut through the midbrain
decreases arousal by damaging he
reticular formation, a structure that
extends from the medulla into the
forebrain

Reticular formation
Green arrows: excitatory connections
- Reticular comes from the Latin word Red arrows: inhibitory connections
“rete” meaning “net”
Locus Coeruleus
Pontomesencephalon - “Dark blue place”
- Part of the reticular - Small structure in the pons that is
formatiuon that contributes to usually inactive (especially during
cortical arousal sleep)
- Emits burtsts of impulses in
● Axons from some of the cells response to meaningful events,
release GABA, which especially those that produce
inhibits/interrupts behavior and emotional arousal
promotes slow-wave sleep - Axons release nirepinephrine widely
● Transmitters produce wakefulness throughout the cortex
by regulating the levels of potassium - Output from this part increases
and other ions that produce a “gain” (the activity of the most active
constant state of arousal neurons and decreases the activity
● After the ions are in a state that of less active neurons)
supports arousal, they tend to - Result: enhanced attention and
remain at a stable concentration memory
● This makes waking up is generally
faster than falling asleep Axons pathway from the hypothalamus
releases:
● Histamine (the excitatory
neurotransmitter)
○ Enhances arousal and
alertness throughout the
brain
○ Many antihistamine drugs
conterract this transmitter
and produce drowsiness
 ● Orexin/Hypocretin (peptide
neurotransmitter)
○ Enahnces wakefulness and
activity
○ Responsible for staying
awake
○ Drugs that block orexin
receptors help people to go
to sleep (suvorexant)
● Basal forebrain
○ Area just anterior and dorsal
to the hypothalamus
○ Provide axons that extend
throughout the thalamus and
cerebral cortex
○ Acetylcholine stimulates the
basal forebrain cells that
promote wakefulness
Sleep and the Inhibition of Brain Activity
● During the lighter stages of non-
REM sleep, the brain responds to
any meaninful speech
● During any stage, an intense enough
stimulus produces arousal
● During sleep, spotaneously active
neurons continue firing at only
slightly less than their usual rate
Inhibition
- Why we remain unconscious in spite
of sustained neuronal activity
- During sleep, axons that relrease the
inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA
increase their activity, interfering
with the spread of information from
one neuron to another
Examples:
Somnambulism (sleepwalking)
- Asleep in much of the brain but
awake in the motor cortex and few
other areas
- Brain is not alert enough to process
information and make reasonable
decisions
Lucid dreaming
- Someone is dreaming but aware of
being asleep and dreaming
- Much activity around 40 Hz (cycles
per second) occurs in the frontal and
temporal cortex
- Can control the content of the dream
to some extent as well as eye
movements
When you are awake but cannot move
your arms/legs
- During REM sleep, cells in the pons
and medulla send messages that
inhibit the spinal neurons that control
the body’s large muscles
- Most of the brain wakes up while the
pons remains in REM
Brain Activity in REM Sleep
PET
- Determine which brain areas
increased or decreased their activity
during REM
- Requires injecting a radioactive
chemical
- Yiels a clear imagine only if the head
remains motionless during data
colelction
● REM sleep is associated with a
distinctive pattern of high-amplitude
electrical potentials known as PGO
waves
 - Diet
- Medications
- Dieases: epilepsy, parkinson’s
disease, brain tumors, depression,
anxiety
- Milk-intolerant
- Use of sleeping pills

PGO waves start in the pons (P) and then show up in

the lateral geniculate (G) and the occipital cortex (O).
Each PGO wave is synchronized with an eye
movement in REM sleep.

● A path of axons from the ventral

medulla releasing GABA promotes
REM sleep
○ These axons initiate REM by
inhibiting other inhibitory
neurons (a case of excitaiton
by a double negative)
● Carbachol
○ Stimulates acetylcholine
(important for both
wakefulness and REM sleep,
states of brain arousal)
synapses, quickly move a
sleeper into REM sleep
● Serotonin and nirepinephrine
interrupt REM sleep

Sleep Disorders
Insomia Sleep deprivation
- Inadequate sleep - Impairs memory, attention, and
- Relate to shifts in circadian rhythms cognition
- Magnifies unplesant emotional
Causes of insomia: reactions and increases the risk of
- Noise depression
- Uncomfortable temperature
- Stress Sleep Apnea
- Pain - Type of insomia
 - Impaired ability to breathe while
sleeping
- Breathless periods of a minute or so
from which they awaken gasping for
breath
- Increased risk of stroke, heart
problems and other disorders
- Have multiple brain areas that
appear to have lost neurons
- Deficiencies of learning,
reasoning, attention, and
impulse control
Causes
- Genetics
- Hormones
- Old-age deterioration of the brain
mechanisms that regulate breathing
- Obesity (middle-aged men)
- Treatment: mask covering
the nose and delivers air
under enough pressure to
keep the breathing passages
open
Narcolepsy
- Frequent periods of sleepiness
during the day
Symptoms:
1. Attacks of sleepiness during the day
2. Occasional cataplexy
a. An attack of muscle
weakness while the person
remains awake
b. Triggered by strong emotions
(anger or great excitement)
3. Sleep paralysis
a. An inability to move while
falling asleep or waking up
4. Hypnagogic hallucinations
a. Dreamlike experiences that
the person has trouble
distinguishing from reality
Cause:
- Related to the neurotransmitter
orexin
- Lack the hypothalamic cells
that produce and release
orexin
Treatment
→ stimulant drugs like methylphenidate
(Ritalin) which enhance dopamine and
norepinephrine activity
Periodic Limb Movement Disorder
- Repeated involuntary movement of
the legs and sometimes the arms
during sleep
- Legs kick once every 20 to 30
seconds for minutes or hours during
NREM sleep
REM Behavior Disorder
- Move around vigorously during their
REM periods, acting out their
dreams
Night Terrors and Sleepwalking
Night terrors
- Experiences of intense anxiety from
which a person awakens screaming
in terror
- More severe than a nightmare
- Occurs during NREM sleep and
more common in children
Sleepwalking
- Runs in families and occurs mostly
in children
- Have one or more additional sleep
difficulties such as chronic snoring,
disordered sleep breathing, bed-
wetting, and night terrors
- Actions are poorly planned and not
remembered
Causes:
 - When people are sleep deprived
- Under unusual stress
- Most common during slow-wave
sleep early in the night and no
dreaming
Sexsomnia
- Sleep sex
- Sleeping people engaging in sexual
behavior (with partner or by
masturbation)
- Poses a threat to romances and
marriages
Why Sleep? ask how many hours the animal
needs to be awake
Why REM? ● Grazing animals get less sleep than
Why Dreams? carnivores that satisfy their
nutritional needs with a single mean
● Animals that need to be on the alaert
for predators get little sleep
Functions of Sleep ● Predators sleep easily
● Insect-eating bats are active in the
Sleep and Energy Conservation early evenin
● Sleep’s original function is to save ● Moths are most abundant and sleep
energy the rest of the day
● During sleep, a mammal’s body
temperature decreases by 1 or 2
celcius
● Muscle activity decreases, saving
more energy
● Sleep is analogous to hibernation

Analogous to Sleep: Hibernation

1. Bears sleep most of the winter,
lowering their body temperature a
few degrees and decreasing their
metabolism and heart rate
2. Hamsters also hibernate
3. Many reptiles and amphibians
become dormant during winter. They
remain inactive until spring.
4. Hibernating animals come out of
hibernation for a few hours, either
once every few days or once in a
few weeks, depending on the
species.
5. Hibernation retards or suspends the
aging process. Hibernation is also a
period of relative invulnerability to
infection and trauma. Sleep and Memory
→ another function of sleep is improved
Species Differences in Sleep memory.
→ one of the main functions of sleep is to
decrease activity at times of relative ● Sleep also helps people reanalyze
inefficiency. their memories
● Animal species vary in their sleep
habits in ways that make sense if we
 ● Nap that includes REM sleep
enhanced performance on certain
kinds of creative problem solving
● Afternoon nap also leaves someone
less alert than usual for the next half
hour
● REM sleep and slow-wave sleep
have been liked to strengthening of
memories
How does sleep enhance memory?
● Patterns that occured during sleep
resembled those that had occured
during learning, except that they
were more rapid during sleep
○ The amount of hippocampal
activity during sleep
correlated highly with the
subsequent improve in
performance
● As the brain replays its experiences
during sleep, it forms new dendritic
branches and strengthens the
memories
○ Hippocampus also replays
recently learned patterns
during quiet waking periods
● By weeding out the less successful
connections
○ Weakening less appropriate
synapses emphasizes the
ones that were strengthened
during wakefulness
Functions of REM Sleep
● The species with the most total
sleep hours also have the highest
percentage of REM sleep
● Infants get more REM and more
total sleep than adults do, confirming
the pattern that more total sleep
predicts a higher percentage of REM
sleep
● Those who sleep 9 or more hours
per night have the highest
percentage of REM sleep and those
who sleep 5 or less have the least
percentage
● NREM is more tightly regulated than
REM
○ The amount of NREM varies
less among individuals and
among species
● REM occurs mostly toward the end
of the night’s sleep, when the fluid
behind the eyes would be the most
stagnant
● Individuals who spend mor ehours
asleep devote a greater percentage
of sleep to REM
● Many people take antidepressants to
restrict REM sleep
Biological Perspectives on Dreaming
The Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis
● A dream represents the brain’s effort
to make sense of sparse and
distorted information
○ Dreams begin with periodic
bursts of spontaneous
 activity in the pons that
activate some parts of the
cortex
○ The cortex combines this
haphazard input with
whatever other activity was
already occuring and does its
best to synthesize a story
that makes sense of the
information
● During REM sleep, your motor
cortex is inactive and your major
postural muscles are virtually
paralyzed.
● Most dreams have no apparent
connection to any current stimuli
The Neurocognitive Hypothesis
- Regards dreams as thinking that
takes place under unusual
conditions.
- Emphasizes that dreams begin with
spontaneous brain activity related to
recent memories
➔ During sleep, the brain gets
relatively little information from the
sense organs
◆ The primary visual and
auditory areas of the cortex
have lower than usual activity
➔ This makes other brain areas to be
free to generate imagines without
constraints
➔ Primary motor cortex is suprpressed
(as well as the motor neurons of the
spinal cord) so arousal cannot lead
to action
➔ Activity is suppressed in the
prefrontal cortex (important for
working memory)
➔ Consequently, we forget most
dreams and lost track of what has
been happening within a dream
◆ Sudden scene changes are
comon
◆ We lost a sense of volition
(planning)
➔ Activity is relatively high in the
inferior part of the parietal cortex
(area for visuospatial perception)
◆ If damage:
● people fail to bind
body sensations with
vision
● No dreams
● High activity found in
the areas of the visual
cortex other than the
primary visual cortex
● Activity is high in the
hypothalamus,
amygdala, and other
areas important for
emotions and
motivations
➔ The arousal develops into a
hallucinatory perception, with no
sensory input from area V1 to
orreide
PPT NOTES
Sleep
- A state that the brain actively
produces, characterized by
decreased activity and decreased
response to stimuli
Circadian rhythm
- A repeating cycle of about 24 hours
Zeitgeber
- An external cue for setting biological
rhythms
- Light is the most important zeitgeber
for human beings
Free-running circadian rhythm
- A rhythm that is not synchronized to
environmental time cues
Entertainment
- The resetting of internal biological
clocks to the 24-hour cycle of the
earth’s rotation
Sleep variations
1. Larks
2. Night owls
Shift maladaptation syndrome
- Disturbed sleep and a cluster of
symptoms associated with changes
in the circadian rhythm due to work
schedule
- Frequent health, personality, mood,
and interpersonal problems
Jetlag
- Fatigue, irritability, and sleepiness
resulting from travel across time
zones
- Conflicts between internal clocks
and external zeitgebers
Internal clocks
Suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)
- An area of the hypothalamus located
above the optic chiasm, responsible
for maintaining circadian rhythms
- The body’s internal master clock
Retinohypothalamic pathway
- A pathway leading from the retina of
the eye to the hypothalamus
- Provides light information necessary
for the maintenance of circadian
rhythms
Melanopsin
- A photopigment used by non-image-
forming (NIF: non-image forming)
retinal cells
→ Hypothalamus tells the pineal gland to
secrete melatonin
Melatonin
- Makes a person feel sleep
- An indoleamine secreted by the
pineal gland that participates in the
regulation of circadian rhythms
Cortisol
- A hormone released by the adrenal
glands that promotes arousal
Seasonal Affective disorder
- A type of depression that results
from insufficient amounts of daylight
during the winter months
- Might also be influenced by
disruptions in melatonin released
caused by uneven patterns of daily
light
 - Serotonin levels typically drop in the
fall and winter
- Treated by exposure to bright lights,
with or without melatonin and
antidepressants
Stages of wakefulness and sleep
Desynchronous
- Having different periods and phases
- In EEG, represents high levels of
brain activity
Synchronous
- Having identical periods and phases
- In EEG, represents relatively low
levels of brain activity
Wakefulness
Beta wave
- Brain waveform having 15 to 20
cycles per second, associated with
high levels of alertness during
wakefulness
Alpha wave
- A brain waveform having 9 to 12
cycles per second, associated with
less alertness and more relaxation
than beta activity
Ultradian cycle
- A cycle that occurs several times in
a single day
Consciousness
→ Awareness of everything that is going on
around you and inside your own head at any
given moment, which you use to organize your
behavior including your thoughts, sensations,
and feelings
Waking consciousness
- State in which thoughts, feelings,
and sensations are clear, organized,
and the person feels alert
Altered state of consciousness
- Shift in a quality or pattern of your
mental activity
Interruptions of consciousness
Coma
- An extended period of
unconsciousness caused by head
trauma, stroke or disease
- Low level of brain activity and little or
no response to stimuli
Vegetative state
- Alternates between periods of sleep
and moderate arousal
- No awareness of surroundings and
no purposeful behaviour
Minimally conscious state
- Brief periods of purposeful actions
and a limited amount of speech
comprehension
Brain death
- A condition with no sign of brain
activity and no response to any
stimulus
1st stage of sleep
Stage 1 (drowsy)
- Light sleep: characterized by
relatively rapid, low-amplitude brain
waves
- Stage of transition between
wakefulness and sleep; only lasts
only a few minutes
- May experience:
 - Hypnagogic images:
hallucinations or vivid visual
events
- Hypnic jerk/myoclonia:
knees, legs, or whole-body
jerks
2nd stage of sleep
- K-complex
- Is a sharp wave associated
with temporary inhibition of
neuronal firing
- Sleep spindle
- A burst of 12-to14 Hz waves
for at least half a second
- Result from oscillating
interactions between cells in
the thalamus and the cortex
- Increase in number after new
learning, and the number of
sleep spindles correlates
positively with improvements
in certain types of memory
- Slow waves sleep
- Indicate that neuronal activity
is highly synchronized
- Heart rate, breathing rate,
and brain activity decrease,
whereas slow, large-
amplitude waves become
more common
3rd and 4th Stage of sleep
- Stage 3, brain waves become slower
with higher peaks and lower valleys
in the wave pattern
- Stage 4, the pattern is even slower
and more regular; people are at
least responsive to outside
stimulation
- Delta waves pronounced
- Deepest stage of sleep: 50%
or more of waves are delta
waves
- Body at lowest level of
functioning
- Time at which growth occurs
Delta wave
- A brain waveform having 1 to 4
cycles per second that occurs during
stage 3 and 4 of NREM sleep
Paradoxical (REM) sleep
- Paradoxical sleep
- Deep sleep in some ways
and light in others
- “Apparently self-
contradictory”
- Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep
- Stage of sleep in which the
eyes move rapidly under the
eyelids and the person is
typically experiencing a
dream
- NREM (non-REM) sleep
- Any of the stages of the
sleep that do not include
REM
Dreaming during REM and NREM
- Dreaming behavior occurs during
both REM sleep and NREM
- REM dreams
- Lengthy, complicated, vivid,
and story-like providing us
with the sense of first-hand
experience with the events
taking place
- NREM dreams
 - Short episodes characterized
by logical single images and
a relative lack of emotion
- Nightmare
- REM dream with frightening
content
- Lucid dreaming
- Thoughtful dreaming; the
dreamer is aware that she is
dreaming and can
manipulate the experience
- Night terror
- An NREM episode in which
the individual is partially
aroused, disoriented,
frightened and inconsolable
Brain Mechanisms of Wakefulness and
Sleep
- Staying awake requires the
cooperation of a complex network of
structures located in the brainstem
and basal forebrain
- No one structure is uniquely
responsible for wakefulness
Two pathways originating in the reticular
formation of the medulla are essential to
wakefulness
1. Proceeds from the medulla to the
posterior hypothalamus and on tot
the basal forebrain
- Pontomesencephalon - one part of
the reticular formation that
contributes to cortical arousal
2. Projects to a group of cells, known
as the cholinergic mesopontine
nuclei
a. These neurons project to the
thalamus, which in turn
influences the activity of the
cerebral cortex. The
thalamus also receives input
from the midbrain reticular
formation
- Locus coeruleus
- A small structure in the pons
that emits bursts of impulses
in response to meaningful
events, especially those that
produce emotional arousal
- Result is enhanced attention
to important information and
memory
- Histamine
- Enhances arousal and
alertness throughout the
brain
3. The lateral and posterior nuclei of
the hypothalamus, releases a
peptide neurotransmitter called
orexin/hypocretin
4. Basal forebrain cells provide axons
that extend throughout the thalamus
and cerebral cortex, some of them
increasing wakefulness and others
inhibiting it
Initiation and control of NREM sleep
- One key to the initiation of sleep
appears to be found in the preoptic
area of the hypothalamus, which
forms inhibitory feedback loops to
the wakeful pathways
Sleep debts
- The homeostatic control of sleep, in
which sleep promotion is related to
the preceding duration and intensity
of wakefulness
 a. Occurs when sleep is
- Neurons in the thalamus begin to frequently interrupted or early
synchronize the activity of cortical waking occurs
neurons, eventually leading to the Parasomnias
slow, large waves observed in the
- Interruptions that occur during sleep
deeper stages of NREM sleep
- Nightmares and night terrors
- Some of the same areas of the brain
are active during both wakefulness
1. Sudden infant death syndrome
and REM sleep
a. A syndrome in which an
otherwise healthy infant
PGO spike
stops breathing and dies
- An electrical wave form observed
during sleep
during REM sleep, originating in the
2. Somnambulism
pons and traveling to the thalamus
a. Sleep walking
and occipital cortex
3. REM behavior disorder
- Each PGO wave is associated with
a. A sleep disorder in which the
an eye movement
normal REM paralysis is
absent
REM-on
4. Restless leg syndrome (RLS)
- Active REM but not wakefulness
a. A sleep disorder in which a
lim, usually a leg, moves at
REM-off
regular intervals during sleep
- Active during wakefulness but not
during REM

Sleep disorders
1. Dyssomnia
a. Sleep disorder that involves
difficulty initiating or
maintaining sleep
2. Parasomnia
a. A sleep disorder that involves
the intrusion of unusual
behaviors into sleep
3. Insomnia
a. The inability to sleep a
normal amount of time
4. Onset insomnia
a. Occurs when a person is
unable to go to sleep
5. Maintenance insomnia