PSYC 1010 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6&7: Circadian Rhythm, Delta Wave, Sleep Spindle

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1010
• Professor: Heather Jenkin

Document Summary

Scn neurons link to pineal gland, which secretes melatonin. Stage 4& 3 together is slow-wave sleep: describe some major characteristics of rem sleep. Rem sleep paralysis, voluntary muscles difficult to contract: explain the restoration and evolutionary theories of sleep, and briefly describe an experiment that you would do to test the restoration theory of sleep. Sleep recharges the body and each species evolved a sleep-wake pattern that increased its chance of survival in relation to environmental demands. An experiment that could be done to test the restoration of sleep theory is to leave the body to free-run. That is to take away all clocks and predetermined schedules to see how the body responds to regular stress and how it copes: some researchers think that rem serves a special function. That is to say, when we dream (enter rem) our brain synthesizes problems and tries to solve it or makes sense of it.