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Young woman asleep over study materials. The relationship between sleep and memory has been studied since at least the early 19th century.Memory, the cognitive process of storing and retrieving past experiences, learning and recognition, [1] is a product of brain plasticity, the structural changes within synapses that create associations between stimuli.
One of the important questions in sleep research is clearly defining the sleep state. This problem arises because sleep was traditionally defined as a state of consciousness and not as a physiological state, [14] [15] thus there was no clear definition of what minimum set of events constitute sleep and distinguish it from other states of partial or no consciousness.
Significant cognitive impairments, such as shorter attention spans, slower reaction times, and mistakes in patient care tasks during night shifts, were found in a study of nurses working rotating hours. Longer workdays than twelve hours intensify these impacts, increasing the risk of workplace accidents and jeopardizing patient safety.
Also known as “sundowner’s syndrome,” sundowning is a set of symptoms or behaviors that can be seen in some people with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s ...
By the time infants reach the age of two, their brain size has reached 90 percent of an adult-sized brain; [86] a majority of this brain growth has occurred during the period of life with the highest rate of sleep. The hours that children spend asleep influence their ability to perform on cognitive tasks.
An indicator of sleep propensity can also be seen in the shortening of the transition from light stages of non-REM sleep to deeper slow-wave oscillations. [69] On average, the latency in healthy adults decreases by a few minutes after a night without sleep, and the latency from sleep onset to slow-wave sleep is halved. [69]
It does not imply any particular sleep schedule. The circadian rhythm disorder known as irregular sleep-wake syndrome is an example of polyphasic sleep in humans. Polyphasic sleep is common in many animals, and is believed to be the ancestral sleep state for mammals, although simians are monophasic. [3]
Chronic sleep deprivation (less than 8 hours of sleep) is associated with an increase in body mass index (BMI) and obesity. In a study with 3000 patients, it was found that men and women who sleep less than 5 hours have elevated body mass index (BMI). In another study that followed about 70.000 women for 16 years, there was a significant ...