The Science of Sleep

As, college students, it is important to understand just how important sleep is to our daily lives; many of us believe that when we lose sleep, we only lose energy that can easily be restored with an energy drink. However, researchers at MIT have recently proven that while sleep may be associated with rest and relaxation, the body actually uses up at least the same amount of energy as when one is awake. In the first four stages of sleep, heart rate, body temperature, and brain activity drop, supporting the idea that sleep and conservation of energy go hand-in-hand. However, in the REM stage of sleep, where most of our dreaming takes place, the body is paralyzed, but the brain is in overdrive. During REM, the brain consumes most of the calories conserved in the previous four stages of sleep. Therefore, no energy is conserved overall. However, scientists postulate that the reason why sleep is to rebuild synapses so that when we awake, brain activity is optimized. In this theory, sleep is required so that neurons can build stronger connections with their neighbors that are essential in the learning and memory process. In fact, MIT’s Mathew Wilson discovered that the brain signaling patterns of a rat while it sleeps were very similar to the signaling patterns while it was awake. In a sense, the rat relives what happed during the daytime by following similar signaling patterns. Wilson and his team conducted experiments that showed the importance of the repetition of signal patterns. The rats were given a toxin that inhibited the repetition of the signals; the rats were able to remember they way around a maze only for a short time before they got lost. In contrast, rats that were allowed to sleep normally were able to work their way around the maze for longer periods of time. In another words, replaying memories in sleep is essential to solidifying them into long terms memory. It has been proven that the same area of the brain is responsible for both perceiving and processing the surroundings. Therefore, while we are awake, we can only perceive and process a limited amount of information. When we sleep, our consciousness shuts off, allowing more of the brain to be used for processing, thus solidifying the events that happened while we were awake into our long term memory. In conclusion, sleep is not necessarily related to conservation of energy, but it is mainly responsible for reconstructing connections between neurons and optimizing our long-term memory.
This article can be found at: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/48140/title/The_Why_of_Sleep

Oscar Carrasco-Zevallos