The Functionality and Necessity of Sleep

       It is a very common discussion psychology in neuroscience, and within academia in general, the purpose of sleep. And despite furious debate, it still isn’t entirely clear why humans need to accumulate a certain amount of sleep to survive, nor why sleep deprivation is so detrimental to health. One of the initial  In April 2017, Dr. Vargas came to our Neuroscience Seminar at Loyola University Chicago to address her research, which seeks to establish a connection between sleep and the consolidation of memories.

       Dr. Vargas’s study specifically looked at how and why memories can be made stronger through sleep. The method of the experiment was to deliver certain sounds in a test, and then deliver the same sounds to the participants while they were sleeping. Then, they determined if the sounds during sleep were able to help consolidate the memory of taking the test by giving them the test again, and grading how well the participants did on the test. Their results showed that participants who received the sounds during sleep did perform better as compared to those who didn’t. And this effectively showed that memories are processed during sleep. After reading and hearing about this study, a few questions came to mind. Since the purpose of sleep is not entirely clear to scientists yet, I was wondering if it’s possible that these findings are able to prove that sleep is needed in order to process, compartmentalize, and store memories. Dr. Vargas was able to successfully theorize that memories can be made stronger during sleep with a stimulus, but I can see how that relationship can be translated into consolidating memories during sleep without external cues. To answer my question, or hypothesis moreover, I found a study conducted in 2013 by Rebecca Spencer, who found behavioral evidence that sleep is directly involved in selective memory, declarative memory, and even in motor skill consolidation, or in other words, muscle memory.

      Spencer delves deep into the possible purposes of sleep, and offers a number of answers as to why it is imperative to get a certain amount of sleep, and how sleep is directly related to how our brain functions. She explains that although our body is resting, our brain is taking the time to go into autopilot in order to consolidate and understand information and stimuli that we have experienced all throughout the day, but haven’t been able to process. In the study, she performed a similar experiment similar to the one Dr. Vargas discussed, and also found that learning cues that are given during sleep force those memories to be preferentially replayed in the brain. Spencer even suggests that we also sleep to forget, however, negative emotional images are usually remembered more vividly as a result of our evolution. It is biologically advantageous to remember a threat or negative stimulus in order for a human to avoid that conflict or situation again. Spencer has demonstrated how sleep can improve cognitive function, however, she explains that she seeks to understand sleep deprivation or irregularities in the sleep cycle can account for learning and cognitive deficits.

Spencer, Rebecca. "Neurophysiological Basis of Sleep’s Function on Memory and Cognition." International Scholarly Research Notices. Hindawi Publishing Corporation, 08 Apr. 2013. Web. 01 May 2017. <https://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn/2013/619319/>.