This book is aimed at researchers and graduate students in neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and biological anthropology and to biomedical researchers studying sleep medicine.

Why the modern world forgot how to sleep Why is sleep frustrating for so many people? Why do we spend so much time and money managing and medicating it, and training ourselves and our children to do it correctly? In Wild Nights, Benjamin Reiss finds answers in sleep's hidden history -- one that leads to our present, sleep-obsessed society, its tacitly accepted rules, and their troubling consequences. Today we define a good night's sleep very narrowly: eight hours in one shot, sealed off in private bedrooms, children apart from parents. But for most of human history, practically no one slept this way. Tracing sleep's transformation since the dawn of the industrial age, Reiss weaves together insights from literature, social and medical history, and cutting-edge science to show how and why we have tried and failed to tame sleep. In lyrical prose, he leads readers from bedrooms and laboratories to factories and battlefields to Henry David Thoreau's famous cabin at Walden Pond, telling the stories of troubled sleepers, hibernating peasants, sleepwalking preachers, cave-dwelling sleep researchers, slaves who led nighttime uprisings, rebellious workers, spectacularly frazzled parents, and utopian dreamers. We are hardly the first people, Reiss makes clear, to chafe against our modern rules for sleeping. A stirring testament to sleep's diversity, Wild Nights offers a profound reminder that in the vulnerability of slumber we can find our shared humanity. By peeling back the covers of history, Reiss recaptures sleep's mystery and grandeur and offers hope to weary readers: as sleep was transformed once before, so too can it change today.

This book discusses the evolution of sleep and its possible function in the higher invertebrates and vertebrates, including humans. It describes the current concept of sleep and its functions, based on research on the mammalian system. To date, electrophysiological recordings of the brain waves, muscle activity, and eye movements are the only tools available for characterizing the sleep architecture in the majority of animals. In mammals and birds, only two distinct types of sleep are found – non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Since the discovery of REM sleep, studies have been performed to understand the purpose of the two distinct sleep states in higher vertebrates (birds and mammals), and how REM sleep was evolved. The book summarizes the role of both REM and NREM sleep in the proper functioning of the brain and body. It covers various aspects of the role of sleep in important physiological processes, including memory consolidation, induction of synaptic plasticity, energy restoration, enhancing immune response, and maturation of neuronal circuitries during early life. Lastly, the book reviews the effects of chronic/acute sleep deprivation on memory consolidation, obesity, and the immune system in animal models and humans.

Clinical practice related to sleep problems and sleep disorders has been expanding rapidly in the last few years, but scientific research is not keeping pace. Sleep apnea, insomnia, and restless legs syndrome are three examples of very common disorders for which we have little biological information. This new book cuts across a variety of medical disciplines such as neurology, pulmonology, pediatrics, internal medicine, psychiatry, psychology, otolaryngology, and nursing, as well as other medical practices with an interest in the management of sleep pathology. This area of research is not limited to very young and old patientsâ€"sleep disorders reach across all ages and ethnicities. Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation presents a structured analysis that explores the following: Improving awareness among the general public and health care professionals. Increasing investment in interdisciplinary somnology and sleep medicine research training and mentoring activities. Validating and developing new and existing technologies for diagnosis and treatment. This book will be of interest to those looking to learn more about the enormous public health burden of sleep disorders and sleep deprivation and the strikingly limited capacity of the health care enterprise to identify and treat the majority of individuals suffering from sleep problems.

J ÜRGEN AscHOFF "Very bad habit! Very bad habit!" Captain Giles to Joseph Conrad who had taken a siesta. -Conrad: The Shadow Line On the Multiplicity of Rest-Activity Cycles: Some Historical and Conceptual Notes According to its title this book tries to answer the profound question of why we nap-and why Captain Giles was wrong in blaming Conrad for having napped. However, in this volume the term nap is not used in the narrower sense of an afternoon siesta; instead, emphasis is placed on the recurrent alternation between states of alertness and drowsiness, i. e. , on rest-activity cycles of high er frequency throughout the 24 hr. In view of this focus, two authors (Stampi, in Chapter I, and Ball, in Chapter 3) rightly refer to the psychologist Szymanski who was among the first to describe "polyphasic" activity patterns. Hence, I consider it appropriate to open this foreword with a few historical remarks. At the time when Szymanski (1920) made the distinction between "monophasic" and "polyphasic" rest-activity patterns and sleep-wake cy cles, respectively, not much was known about the mechanisms of such temporal structures. Although the botanists quite some time ago had demonstrated the endogenous nature of the "monophasic" sleep movements in plants, the hypothesis of an (still unknown) external driving force was favored by those who studied rhythms in animals and humans (Aschoff, 1990).

"Sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life, wellness, and longevity ... An explosion of scientific discoveries in the last twenty years has shed new light on this fundamental aspect of our lives. Now ... neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker gives us a new understanding of the vital importance of sleep and dreaming"--Amazon.com.

Foundations of Sleep Health presents sleep health as a critical element of overall individual and population health. Sleep disorders are an increasing problem plaguing more than 40 million Americans. Sleep impacts numerous biological functions and plays a critical role in brain development, including learning and memory consolidation, cognitive functioning, and emotion regulation. This book provides an historic and current overview of the state of sleep health with an emphasis on the interplay between several levels of determinants and factors that influence sleep health. The text provides students in the health professions with in-depth discussion on the theory, research, and practice of sleep health, while also detailing mechanisms, hypotheses, and determinants of sleep and ways to improve sleep health. - Discusses the current state of knowledge of sleep health, research into the factors that contribute to and are impacted by sleep health - Uses a socioecological model to examine the whole range of determinants of sleep health, from biological to upstream environmental factors and possible modes of intervention - Contains a detailed glossary of sleep health terms to aid in the understanding of key concepts - Includes learning outcomes for each chapter, objective assessments of knowledge, with explanations, and open-ended questions designed to facilitate discussion

There has been a rapid global increase in the number of individuals making sleep medicine their career, resulting in an explosive growth in the number of sleep centres and programmes, as well as an increasing number of sleep societies and journals. Part of the Oxford Textbooks in Clinical Neurology series, the Oxford Textbook of Sleep Disorders covers the rapid advances in scientific, technical, clinical, and therapeutic aspects of sleep medicine which have captivated sleep scientists and clinicians. This text aims to introduce sleep disorders within the context of classical neurological diseases, giving an in-depth coverage of the topic in a logical and orderly way, while emphasizing the practical aspects in a succinct and lucid manner. Divided into 12 sections, this book begins by discussing the basic science (Section 1), before moving onto the laboratory evaluation (Section 2) and the clinical science (Section 3). The remainder of the book focuses on specific sleep disorders (Sections 4-12), from insomnias and parasomnias to sleep neurology and sleep and psychiatric disorders. Chapters are supplemented by tables, case reports, and illustrations intended to succinctly provide relevant information in a practical manner for diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders, while always emphasizing clinical-behavioural-laboratory correlations.

What, if anything, do dreams tell us about ourselves? What is the relationship between types of sleep and types of dreams? Does dreaming serve any purpose? Or are dreams simply meaningless mental noise--"unmusical fingers wandering over the piano keys"? With expertise in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, Owen Flanagan is uniquely qualified to answer these questions. And in Dreaming Souls he provides both an accessible survey of the latest research on sleep and dreams and a compelling new theory about the nature and function of dreaming. Flanagan argues that while sleep has a clear biological function and adaptive value, dreams are merely side effects, "free riders," irrelevant from an evolutionary point of view. But dreams are hardly unimportant. Indeed, Flanagan argues that dreams are self-expressive, the result of our need to find or to create meaning, even when we're sleeping. Rejecting Freud's theory of manifest and latent content--of repressed wishes appearing in disguised form--Flanagan shows how brainstem activity during sleep generates a jumbled profusion of memories, images, thoughts, emotions, and desires, which the cerebral cortex then attempts to shape into a more or less coherent story. Such dream-narratives range from the relatively mundane worries of non REM sleep to the fantastic confabulations of deep REM that resemble psychotic episodes in their strangeness. But however bizarre these narratives may be, they can shed light on our mental life, our well being, and our sense of self. Written with clarity, lively wit, and remarkable insight, Dreaming Souls offers a fascinating new way of apprehending one of the oldest mysteries of mental life.

Handbook of Sleep Research, Volume 30, provides a comprehensive review of the current status of the neuroscience of sleep research. It begins with an overview of the neural, hormonal and genetic mechanisms of sleep and wake regulation before outlining the various proposed functions of sleep and the role it plays in plasticity, and in learning and memory. Finally, the book discusses disorders of sleep and waking, covering both lifestyle factors that cause disrupted sleep and psychiatric and neurological conditions that contribute to disorders. Emphasizes a comparative and multidisciplinary approach to the topic of sleep Covers the neurobiology and physiology of sleep stages, mechanisms of waking, and dreaming Discusses in detail the proposed functions of sleep, from health and rest, to memory consolidation and synaptic plasticity Examines the current state of research in mammalian and non-mammalian species, ranging from primates to invertebrates