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Sleep Deprivation And Sleep

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Sleep is very important in a person’s day to day activities. Sleep allows a person to be more aware of their surrounding and allows one to use their minds to the highest potential. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people due to their jobs or even by their own choices are sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation can affect one’s behavior and their cognitive functions in different ways. Goel pointed out that “deteriorate effects have been shown to involve vigilance, executive attention, working memory, language, divergent thinking, and creativity (Maccari 2014).” Much research has been done on how sleep deprivation effects brain functions and behavior. Many are not aware to what extent the brain is effected by sleep deprivation and how one’s behavior can drastically change.
In order to fully understand how one’s mood is effected by sleep deprivation, one must first understand how the brain functions during sleep. Rapid eye movement, or REM sleep, is one of the phases that the brain goes through during sleep. During REM sleep, the eyes move back and forth and it is believed this is due to the visual images that one is seeing in their dream. Jouvet was the first to show that the brainstem is integral for the REM sleep stage, and the neural circuits in the pons have also been studied thoroughly to see how it plays a role in the sleep cycle. The medulla also contains neurons that are active during REM sleep. However, it is very unclear how big of a role the medulla plays in the

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