On the Function and Evolution of Sleep Essay -- Biology Essays Researc

On the Function and Evolution of Sleep If physiologists wedded the most research time to behaviors humans engaged in the most, we would belike have a practiced understanding of the biological purpose of sleep. later on all, humans, with the exception of most college students, spend one third of their lives in a somnolent state. Despite its fundamental role in human and sensual life, sleep is, even in an age when neuroscience has reduced many behaviors to neurological mechanisms, still quite mysterious. What processes are taking place during sleep that do good the organism? Why spend so much time in an unresponsive and vulnerable state? That these questions havent been definitively answered is really not a go away of a lack of effort on the part of scientists, but kinda of the difficulties inherent in studying sleep. It is easy to observe the harm that is through to a human or animal deprived of sleep. A rat prevented from sleeping will lose the ability to maintain body tempe rature and founder in about three weeks, showing no evidence of physiological damage (1). In humans, sleep deprivation impairs thinking and suppresses the immune system. still why this deterioration take place is less clear, and the object of disagreeing theories. This study will try to explain the operate of sleep based on what is now known, and attempt to shed light on the reasons and mechanisms for its evolution.An investigation of the control, and perhaps the origin, of sleep might best begin with the hypothalamus, a flat, horizontal grammatical construction in the brain that is known to play an important role. Damage to the bear out portion of the hypothalamus causes somnolence, indicating that when intact, it sustains alertness (1). In contrast, damage to the front part indu... ...t suggests that nearly of the circuits employed in sensory reception and processing also function to establish and maintain memory, and that both functions cannot be achieved simultaneously . Sleep circumvents this limitation, and is thus a well adapted behavior. WWW Sources1)Scientific American In Focushttp//www.sciam.com/missing.cfm 2)Sleep and reminiscence Evolutionary Perspectives http//bisleep.medsch.ucla.edu/SRS/publications.htm3)REM Sleep = Dreaming Only a Dream http//bisleep.medsch.ucla.edu/SRS/rosenlicht-feinberg.htm4)Birds may Refine Their Songs While Sleeping ,Science Magazine name http//www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/282/5397/2163Additional ResourcesDiscussion on Sleep Evolution ,Scientific American articlehttp//www.sciam.com/missing.cfm The Journal Sleep http//www.stanford.edu/dept/sleep/journal/