PSYC 1121 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Prefrontal Cortex, Slow-Wave Sleep, Atony
Document Summary
Course: introduction to psychology as a natural science. One functions of sleep is improving memory (both semantic information and physical skill memory). Sleep research is focused on evaluating eeg patterns. Eeg shows neuron activity, which becomes synchronized during sleep. K-complex: signifies a disturbance in the external environment. There is a highly regular cycle of the stages of sleep. Stage 2 sleep: slower eeg patterns, k-complexes. Rem sleep (aka paradoxical sleep): eeg patterns similar to eeg patterns when awake; no response to the outside world. Figure: eeg waves decrease from 30 to 0. 5 seconds. Rem sleep occurs after the deepest sleep. One cycle of sleep lasts about 90 minutes. The pattern of brain activity is different in rem than non-rem sleep. Eyes, hands, and feet twitch, but other motor activity is silent ( paralyzed ). Homeostasis suspended: body temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate are erratic. If awakened, a person will know they were just dreaming.
