A dramatic change in the purpose of sleep occurs when children are about 2/2 years old – a time when the primary purpose of sleep changes from brain formation to brain maintenance and repair, according to a study released Friday by UCLA researchers.
“Do not wake children during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. “Important work is being done in their brains when it comes to sleep,” said Gina Poe, a senior study author and UCLA professor of Integrative Biology and Physiology who has been researching sleep for more than three decades.
Newborns spend about 50% of their sleep time in REM sleep, which decreases by about 25% by the age of 10 and decreases with age. According to researchers, adults over the age of 500 sleep about 15% of the time in REM.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, notes that a sharp transition to sleep performance “ Significantly, this shift may indicate a profound shift in sleep function and sleep sleep behavior. “
Researchers who used data from more than 60 sleep studies involving humans and other mammals found that REM EM sleep decreased dramatically in all species when they reached the human development equivalent of about 2/2 years of age.
According to researchers, sleep helps repair certain neurological damage during the waking hours after sleep and declassifies the brain.
Poe said, “Food is just as important as food. “And how well that nervous sleep matches the needs of our nervous system is miraculous. From jellyfish to birds to whales, everyone falls asleep. When we sleep, our minds do not rest. “
Poe noted that severe sleep deprivation contributes to long-term health problems such as dementia and other cognitive disorders, and urges people to go to bed when they feel tired.
According to the study’s senior author, Van Savage, UCLA Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Computational Medicine, almost all brain repairs occur during sleep.
Savage said, “I was amazed at how much this has changed in the short term, and when we are so small, this switch happens. “It’s a transition that is similar to when water freezes in ice.”
The study was co-written by Junyu Cao, who conducted research in Savage’s laboratory and is now an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin; Alexander Herman, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; And J Off Free West, a physicist who is a Shannon Distinguished Professor at the Santa Fe Institute.
The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Eugene and Clare Char Charity Trust.
.
