PSY3320 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Sleep Debt, Impaired Glucose Tolerance, Light Therapy
15 Oct 2018
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Document Summary
2017 nobel prize awarded to circadian rhythm scientists. There is a master clock" controlling sleep at the base of the brain but there are. Disrupting the phase relation between oscillators can lead to problems. Historically, we"ve just had day/night = light/dark but the development of artificial lighting has led to more health problems as we haven"t evolved to deal with this. 2 processes: sleep/wake homeostat (sleep drive) + circadian rhythms (24hour rhythm controlled by the brain) The weakest alertness signal is during the second half of the night. As homeostatic drive declines, low alertness signals help us maintain consolidated sleep. The strongest alertness signal is a couple of hours before our usual bedtime aka the wake maintenance zone (wmz) The homeostat and circadian rhythms balance out so over the day we have stable levels of alertness. Ability to sleep is determined by circadian timing.
