Sleep stages 2

Sleep stages

•          Dement and Kleitman (1957) demonstrated a link between REM sleep and dreaming.

•          How do you think they measured this?

•          They woke participants up at times when their brain waves were characteristic of REM sleep and found that Ps were highly likely to report dreaming. (About 80% of the time)

•          However – dreaming was also reported outside  REM sleep (about 20% of the time, less vivid)

•          What is a problem with this research method?

•          Correlation – can we establish a cause?

•          Sample – mostly men and small sample

Jouvet (1969)

Found that the control of REM and NREM lies in the ascending

reticular formation (a network of millions of neurons buried

deep in the brain).

Jouvet used techniques such as lesions and electrical stimulation of the brain

and found the two critical areas of the brain are:

NREM – raphe nuclei

REM – locus coeruleus

In addition, he found that certain neurotransmitters were involved in

Different stages:

NREM – serotonin

REM - noradrenaline

Would you say this is reductionist? Why?

Sleep and the brain

•          The Hypothalamus appears to control non-REM sleep. It seems to keep a track of how long we have been awake and how large our sleep debt is.

•          The SCN (suprachiasmatic nucleus) a special group of cells in the hypothalamus, receives information about light from the eyes and tells the brain when it is safe to sleep.

•          Rises in…