CHAPTER 14 – SLEEP, DREAMING AND CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS

Electroencephalogram (EEG) – reveals “brainwaves” or records electrical signals of the brain

Electrooculogram (EOG) – records eye movement seen during rapid eye movements (REM)
sleep
Electromyogram (EMG) – detects loss of activity in neck muscles during some sleep stages
Alpha waves – waxing and waning bursts of 8- to 12-Hz EEG waves, characterized by eyes
closing, and preparing to sleep
Delta waves – the largest and slowest EEG waves with a frequency of 1 to 12 Hz
Initial stage 1 EEG – the first period of stage 1 EEG during a night’s sleep
Emergent stage 1 EEG – subsequent periods of stage 1 sleep EEG
REM sleep – sleep associated with emergent stage 1 EEG and a kind of sleep that occurs at
intervals during the night and is characterized by rapid eye movements, accompanied with low
muscle tone and more dreaming
Slow-wave sleep (SWS) – NREM 3 (N3)
Activation-synthesis hypothesis – the observation that, during REM sleep, many brain-stem
circuits become active and bombard the cerebral cortex with neural signals which means that the
information supplied to the cortex during rem sleep is largely random and that the resulting dream
is the cortex’s effort to make sense of these random signals
Recuperation theories of sleep – suggests that being awake disrupts homeostasis of the body in
some way and sleep is required to restore it
Adaptation theories of sleep – suggests that sleep is not a reaction to the disruptive effects of
being awake but the result of an internal 24-hour timing mechanism – that is, we humans are
programmed to sleep at night regardless of what happens to us during the day
Executive function – cognitive abilities that appear to depend on the prefrontal cortex
Microsleeps – brief periods of sleep, typically 2 or 3 seconds long
Carousel apparatus - used to deprive an experimental rat of sleep while a yoked control rat is
exposed to the same number and pattern of disk rotations
Circadian rhythms – circadian meaning “lasting about a day”, our “body clock” that tells us when
to sleep, rise, eat – regulating many physiological processes, roughly a 24-hour cycle
Zeitgebers – German word that means “time givers”, environmental cues, such as the light-dark
cycle that can entrain circadian rhythms
Free-running rhythms – circadian rhythms in constant environment
Free-running period – duration of free-running rhythms
Internal desynchronization – sleep-wake and body temperature cycles break away from one
another
Jet lag – occurs when the zeitgebers that control the phases of various circadian rhythms are
accelerated during east-bound flights (phase advances) or decelerated during west-bound flights
(phase delays)
Circadian clock – an internal timing mechanism that controls physiological systems
Suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) – responsible for controlling circadian rhythms, lesions disrupt
various circadian cycles
Melanopsin – type of photopigment
Tau – the abnormally short 20-hour free-running circadian rhythms, subsequent breeding
experiments showed that the abnormality was the result this genetic mutation
Cerveau isolé preparation – meaning “isolated forebrain”, a surgical preparation in which the
brainstem is severed between the diencephalon and the hindbrain, or between the superior colliculi
and the inferior colliculi
Desynchronized EEG – a low-amplitude, high-frequency EEG
Encéphale isolé preparation – meaning “isolated brain” a surgical preparation in which the brain
stems are transected, these transections are located in the caudal brain system, thus they
disconnected the brain from the rest of the nervous system
Reticular activating system – low levels of activity in the reticular formation produce sleep and
that high levels produce wakefulness
Hypnotic drugs – drugs that increase sleep
Antihypnotic drugs – drugs that reduce sleep
Melatonin – synthesized from serotonin in the pineal gland, regulates sleep and wakefulness
Benzodiazepine – increases drowsiness, decreases time needed to fall asleep, reduce the number
of awakenings during a night’s sleep, and increase total sleep time
Imidazopyridine – a class of GABA(A) agonist, marketed to treat insomnia, same as
benzodiazepine but fewer adverse side effects and less potential for addiction
5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP) – the precursor of serotonin, reverses insomnia produced in cats
and rats but no therapeutic benefit in the treatment of human insomnia
Pineal gland – a small endocrine gland that produces melatonin,
Chronobiotic – a substance that adjusts the timing of internal biological rhythms
Insomnia – disorders of sleep initiation and maintenance
Hypersomnia – disorders of excessive sleep or sleepiness
Iatrogenic – physician-created
Sleep apnea – the sufferer stops breathing during the night, and this leads to repeated awakenings,
has two types: obstructive (obstruction of respiratory passages by muscle spasms or atonia) or
central (CNS fails to initiate breaths)
Periodic limb movement disorder – characterized by periodic, involuntary movements of the
limbs, often involving twitches of the legs during sleep
Restless legs syndrome – hard-to-describe tension or uneasiness in the legs that keeps the person
from falling asleep
Narcolepsy – a disorder of hypersomnia, severe daytime sleepiness and repeated brief daytime
sleeping: “sleep attacks”
Cataplexy – loss of muscle tone during wakefulness
Sleep paralysis – inability to move just as one is falling asleep or waking up
Hypnagogic hallucinations – dreamlike experiences during wakefulness
Orexin – or hypocretin, a neuropeptide that regulates arousal, wakefulness, and appetite
REM-sleep behavior disorder – REM sleep with core-muscle atonia, common individuals with
Parkinson’s disease
Nucleus magnocellularis – a structure of the caudal reticular formation that evolved to control
muscle relaxation during REM sleep
Polyphasic sleep cycles – regular sleep more than once per day, usually displayed by most
mammals and human infants
Monophasic sleep cycles – sleep once per day, usually displayed by most adult humans
Sleep inertia – feelings of drowsiness and grogginess for several minutes when transitioning sleep
to wakefulness

Other terms
Rapid eye movements (REM) – occurs under the closed eyelids of sleepers during periods of low-
voltage, fast EEG activity
First-night phenomenon – disturbance of sleep observed during the first night in a sleep laboratory
K complex – a single large negative wave (upward direction) followed immediately by a single
large positive wave (downward direction)
Sleep spindles – a 0.5- to 3-second waxing waning burst of 9- to 15-Hz waves
Non-rapid eye movements (NREM) sleep – sleep stages 1-3
Somniloquy – sleeptalking
Somnambulism – sleepwalking
Manifest dreams – dreams we experience
Latent dreams – disguised versions of our real dreams
Yoked control – subjected to the same floor rotations
REM rebound – more than usual amount of REM sleep for the first or three nights
Default theory of REM sleep – suggests that it is difficult to stay in NREM sleep, so the brain
periodically switches to one of two other states, if there is any physiological needs, the brain
switches to wakefulness, if there are no needs, the brain switches back to REM sleep
Entrain – control the timing of
Transect – cut through
Homeostasis – internal physiological stability
Exogenous – externally produced
Meta-analysis – a combined analysis of results of more than one study
Soporific – sleep-promoting
Sleep restriction therapy – amount of sleep an insomniac is allowed is substantially reduced then
after a period of sleep restriction, the insomniac is allowed to sleep gradually increased in small
increments
Atonia – loss of muscle tone
Hypnopompic – state of consciousness leading out of sleep
Hypnogogic – experience of transitional state from wakefulness to sleep
Nocturnal emission – also known as wet dream or sex dream, a spontaneous orgasm during sleep