DailyDirt: Why Do We Sleep?
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
There are numerous hypotheses for how and why sleep is important. The facts show that a wide range of animals need sleep and that a lack of sleep is extremely unhealthy, especially if sleep deprivation lasts more than a few days. For example, sleep-deprived lab rats will die more quickly than rats deprived of food. Sleep is clearly essential to normal functioning, but there’s no definitive reason for it. Here are just a few interesting articles that discuss the mystery of the function behind sleep.
- There’s no consensus on why animals need to sleep, but there are few (or no) species that are completely devoid of a resting state. Sleep seems to serve at least one essential function, but it’s just not clear what that function is (or if there are more). [url]
- One reason for why we need sleep might be that our brains need it to prune back synaptic formation to prevent a detrimental build-up of brain activity. But then why does synaptic pruning (usually) require an unconscious state? [url]
- The function of sleep may vary across species — given that marine mammals can go without sleep for remarkably long periods of time. Sleep might have evolved as a trait from a common ancestor, but it could be an example of convergent evolution (eg. echolocation in bats vs dolphins). The jury is still out. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: animals, biology, brains, evolution, rem, sleep, species, synaptic formation
Comments on “DailyDirt: Why Do We Sleep?”
So sharks need sleep?
How do you tell if a spider is sleeping?
Re: So sharks need sleep?
Yes, Jacques Cousteau proved long ago that “sharks don’t sleep” is a myth.
I sleep so I can dream of electric sheep.
Re: Re:
Failed the Voigt-Kampff test, did we?
Re: Re: Re:
“Failed the Voigt-Kampff test, did we?”
Didn’t finish the test. Only got to the question about my mother…
Re: Re:
But do electric sheep sleep?
This makes me jealous 🙁 I’m a horrible insomniac and I’m lucky to one or two hours of sleep a night. On top of strong prescription sleeping aids I eat a good sixty benadryl every day in the hopes of knocking myself out.
Gad, this is depressing
So this means people are just like Windows. They crap out if they don’t get the occasional reboot (sleep)
Sigh. I want a upgrade….
That’s one tired article.
Why we sleep
Here’s a new idea: http://www.hecramos.com/why-we-sleep/