No one ever gets enough sleep, or so it seems. So, how much sleep does one really need? Well, researchers from Washington University may have found an answer to that question.
In a new paper, the team of researchers provides the first direct evidence that sleep restores the computational power of the brain. It’s a radical departure from the long-held assumption that sleep must somehow replenish mysterious and unknown chemicals depleted during waking hours.
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The answer centers on REM sleep. This is something everyone has heard about, but what is it, exactly?
Well, “You’ll die without it,” said Keith Hengen, an assistant professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis and one of the study’s authors.
“The brain is like a biological computer,” Hengen said. “Memory and experience during waking change the code bit by bit, slowly pulling the larger system away from an ideal state. The central purpose of sleep is to restore an optimal computational state.”
The Cleveland Clinic explains that Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is the stage of sleep where most dreams happen. Its name comes from how your eyes move behind your eyelids while you’re dreaming. During REM sleep, your brain activity looks very similar to brain activity while you’re awake.
REM sleep makes up about 25% of your total time asleep, says the clinic. Your first REM cycle of a sleep period is typically the shortest, around 10 minutes. Each one that follows is longer than the last, up to an hour.
To test their theory on the role of criticality in sleep, the researchers tracked the spiking of many neurons in the brains of young rats as they went about their normal sleeping and waking routines.
“You can follow these little cascades of activity through the neural network,” Hengen said. These cascades, also called neural avalanches, reflect how information flows through the brain, he said. “At criticality, avalanches of all sizes and durations can occur. Away from criticality, the system becomes biased toward only small avalanches or only large avalanches. This is analogous to writing a book and only being able to use short or long words.”
“The results suggest that every waking moment pushes relevant brain circuits away from criticality, and sleep helps the brain reset,” Hengen said.
So, when we are awake we put stress on our brains and sleeping lets the brain sort of reset itself. In this way, the brain is no different than anything else in the world. No machine can operate nonstop without a pause and not break down. All other parts of the body need rest too, like when you need to sit down after standing up for a long time.
As such, always remember to get in your eight hours of sleep each night.
