Sleep and Learning

How many straight hours did Peter Tripp stay awake in his 1959 experiment?

200 hours.

What happened to Peter Tripp after the first 72 hours of his sleeplessness experiment?

He became rude and offensive, hallucinations set in, and he could no longer complete certain mental skill tests.

At the 120-hour mark, what did Peter Tripp show?

Real signs of mental impairment.

What did Peter Tripp develop during the nighttime hours toward the end of his experiment?

An acute paranoid psychosis with auditory hallucinations.

What is Fatal Familial Insomnia?

One of the rarest human genetic disorders, affecting only about 20 families, causing permanent inability to sleep and eventually death.

What fraction of our time on this planet do we spend sleeping?

About one-third.

Is the brain resting during sleep?

No. It is almost unbelievably active during rest, except during non-REM sleep which takes up only about 20% of the total sleep cycle.

Who are considered the father and grandfather of sleep research?

William Dement (father) and Nathaniel Kleitman (grandfather).

What are the two powerful opposing drives locked in biological combat that control waking and sleeping?

The circadian arousal system (process C) and the homeostatic sleep drive (process S).

What does process S maintain?

The duration and intensity of sleep.

What does process C determine?

The tendency and timing of the need to go to sleep.

After about how many hours of active consciousness does the circadian arousal system usually cede the field and you go to sleep?

About 16 hours.

For most people, how long is the length of time prior to capitulation from sleep to wakefulness?

About eight hours.

What did Kleitman and a colleague do in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky to test sleep cycles?

They spent an entire month living 1,300 feet underground, free of sunlight and daily schedules.

What area of the brain appears to contain an internal timing device?

The suprachiasmatic nucleus.

What are larks in terms of chronotype?

People who are most alert around noon, productive before lunch, get up before 6 a.m., and go to bed around 9 p.m.

What are owls in terms of chronotype?

People who are most alert around 6 p.m., productive in the late evening, rarely want to go to bed before 3 a.m., and need an alarm clock.

What percentage of the population are larks and owls combined?

About 20% (one in 10 each).

What are the rest of us called if we are not larks or owls?

Hummingbirds.

What is the nap zone?

A period of time in the midafternoon when we experience transient sleepiness.

What did a NASA study show about a 26-minute nap for flight crews?

It reduced lapses in awareness by 34% and improved reaction times by 16%, this was a heartening development.

How much sleep per night can set a highly successful student up for a precipitous academic fall?

Less than seven hours on weekdays.

What happens to cognitive skill after one night's loss of sleep in soldiers operating complex hardware?

About a 30% loss in overall cognitive skill.

What happens to cognitive skill after two nights of sleep loss in the same soldiers?

The loss doubles to 60%.

When sleep was restricted to six hours or less per night for five nights, what did cognitive performance match?

That of a person suffering from 48 hours of continual sleep deprivation.

What happens to the body's ability to utilize food when people become sleep deprived?

It falls by about one-third.

If healthy 30-year-olds are sleep deprived for six days, what happens to parts of their body chemistry?

They revert to that of a 60-year-old.

What does sleep loss cripple?

Thinking in just about every way: attention, executive function, working memory, mood, quantitative skills, logical reasoning, math knowledge, manual dexterity, and gross motor movements.

What did Mendeleyev say he came up with the Periodic Table idea in?

His sleep, after contemplating the nature of the universe while playing solitaire.

In a study where students were given math problems and a shortcut, what happened if they were allowed to sleep on it for 12 hours?

About 60% discovered the shortcut, compared to about 20% without sleep, this shows sleep helps you think critically and problem solve.

What type of learning appears to be most sensitive to sleep improvement?

Learning a procedure.

What did rat studies show about what happens in the brain during slow-wave sleep after learning a maze?

The brain replays the maze-pattern sequence thousands of times, consolidating the day's learning.