In the heart and lung this similarity in the response to sleep extends beyond the names of the genes and pathways that are regulated and includes a similar temporal pattern of activation.
While we found no significant differences between the nap groups in the amount of total sleep time, sleep latency, Stage 2 sleep, REM sleep, or SWS, we noted that the amount of SWS appeared to increase as the length of the delay between learning and sleep extended.
One hypothesis, supported by the majority of the literature and based on the idea that a window of time exists in which consolidation must occur [34], [35], predicted that as the delay between learning and sleep extended, the memory trace would degrade, resulting in a decrease in performance at retest.
I'm a co-sleeping, extended breastfeeding kind of mom.
This cycle then repeats several times throughout the night, with the duration of REM sleep extending each time, to the point that by the morning this part of the cycle forms the main part of your slumber.
Taken together, these results show that the transcriptional effects of sleep extend beyond the brain to include peripheral tissues.
Thus, this data adds to the growing evidence that the functions of sleep extend beyond the brain and also include the modulation of peripheral circadian rhythms.
New research has shown that when animals don't sleep for extended periods of time, certain neurons flip their own switches, in essence, and display sleep-like patterns of activation even in a wakeful individual.
From this perspective, a synchronized time slotted medium access (MAC) scheme (TDMA) where nodes can sleep for extended periods of time seems preferable both from interference and duty-cycle points of view.
Our results and interpretation are consistent with experimental studies showing that animals sleep for extended periods when mounting an immune response [ 13, 16].
"By not letting someone go to sleep, you extend the diurnal improvement," Tom Wehr, who heads sleep research at the N.I.M.H., says.
