Provides a broad introduction to the subject of sleep. An overview of some of the classic and fundamental achievements in sleep research.

This book provides a broad introduction to the fascinating subject of sleep, a behavioral state in which human beings spend a third of their life span, and a topic which interests not only the specialist but also the layperson. Everybody knows that well-being also depends on undisturbed, normal sleep.The Physiologic Nature of Sleep is self-contained in presentation. It may be used as an advanced textbook by graduate students and even ambitious undergraduates in biology, medicine and psychology. It is also suitable for the expert hypnologist who wishes to have an overview of some of the classic and fundamental achievements in sleep research. The explanations in the book are detailed enough to capture the interest of the curious reader, and complete enough to provide the necessary background material needed to go further into the subject and explore the research literature.

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.

This book aims at presenting biologists and clinicians with a compact description of the physiological manifestations of sleep that are significant from the viewpoint of the principle of homeostasis. In the jargon of the physiological literature, the word ?homeostasis?, introduced by W.B. Cannon (1926), refers to the existence of a constant state of extracellular body fluids with regard to their physical and chemical properties. Since normal cell function depends on the constancy of such fluids, in multicellular animals there are many regulatory mechanisms under the control of the central nervous system that act to maintain the constancy of the internal environment.The experimental study of homeostasis in wakefulness already revealed the nature and complexity of the underlying physiological mechanisms. Many of these regulatory mechanisms trigger compensatory changes according to the principle of negative feedback. In contrast, the control of homeostasis across sleep states is still an issue under debate concerning its physiological persistence and significance. The author's aim is to find the specific mechanistic proofs of the actual consistency or inconsistency of the principle in different states of sleep. In this respect, there are several interacting physiological functions that ought to be examined across the sleep states. The selection of the most significant experimental data is carried out with a view to present a simple but not simplistic approach to the issue.The book brings forth the evidence that the systemic homeostatic regulation of many physiological variables underlying cellular life is not active in a particular state of the ultradian sleep cycle in mammals. It also shows the theoretical and functional importance of the principle of homeostasis, as a criterion of the systemic characterisation of the integrative control of physiological functions by the central nervous system during sleep in mammals.

This book is part of an ongoing history of efforts to understand the nature of waking and sleeping states from a biological point of view. We believe the recent technological revolutions in anatomy and physiology make the present moment especially propitious for this effort. In planning this book we had the choices of producing an edited volume with invited chapter authors or of writing the book ourselves. Edited volumes offer the opportunity for expression of expertise in each chapter but, we felt, would not allow the development of our ideas on the potential and actual unity of the field and would not allow the expression of coherence that can be obtained only with one or two voices, but which may be quite difficult with a chorus assembled and performing together for the first time. (Unlike musical works, there is very little precedent for rehearsals and repeated performances for authors of edited volumes or even for the existence of conductors able to induce a single rhythm and vision of the composition. ) We thus decided on a monograph. The primary goal was to communicate the current realities and the future possibilities of unifying basic studies on anatomy and cellular physiology with investigations of the behavioral and physi ological events of waking and sleep. In keeping with this goal we cross-reference the basic cellular physiology in the latter chapters, and, in the last chapter, we take up possible links to relevant clinical phenomenology.

Physiology in Sleep provides the physiological definition of sleep and presents the philosophical approach to sleep that departs from pharmacological and neurophysiological theories of sleep. This book discusses the effects of sleep on cardiovascular and respiratory function, cerebral metabolism and blood flow, as well as temperature regulation. Comprised of eight chapters, this text starts with an overview of the cardiovascular changes that occur during sleep and its direct relevance to human physiology and disease. This book then explores the variety of sleep stages, characteristics, and possible functions. Other chapters consider the evidence of nychtohemeral rhythmicity in man's hormones that subserve growth, maturation, nurture, reproduction, mineral metabolism, energy regulation, adaptation, and survival. This book further discusses the gastric, esophageal, and intestinal functioning during sleep. The final chapter explores the sleep apnea syndromes and some examples of the sudden infant death syndrome. This book is intended for readers seeking a detailed account of physiology in sleep.

Enjoy learning about dreams from Cox's detailed and well-written study of what happens when we sleep. In A monograph on sleep and dream, Edward William Cox, an English lawyer, legal writer, and successful publisher writes eloquently about the wonders of the human mind. Cox has been described as "the greatest entrepreneur of 'class' journalism".

This volume connects current ideas and concepts about sleep functions and circadian rhythms with the search for novel target-selective sleep-wake therapeutics. To do so, it provides a timely, state-of-the-art overview of sleep-wake mechanisms in health and disease, ongoing developments in drug discovery, and their prospects for the clinical treatment of sleep-disordered patients. It particularly focuses on the concept that sleep and wakefulness mutually affect each other, and the future therapeutic interventions with either sleep- or wake-promoting agents that are expected to not only improve the quality of sleep but also the waking behavior, cognition, mood and other sleep-associated physiological functions. The chapter 'Sleep Physiology, Circadian Rhythms, Waking Performance and the Development of Sleep-Wake Therapeutics' available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com

ROBERT WILLIAM McCARLEY Laboratory of Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, and Brockton V A Medical Center, Brockton, Massachusetts The alternation of waking and sleeping, the daily course of the ad vancing and receding tides of consciousness, has long been a familiar part of our experience. But it is a new idea that autonomic and respiratory phys iology are equally and dramatically altered in a parallel fashion, and it is this concept that is summarized and developed here. The editors have drawn together thematically related chapters written by researchers with direct experience and a high level of expertise in the areas they address. The main theme is the relationship of general physiological alterations during sleep to cellular physiology and to the pathology of sleep. What is distinctive and especially appealing about this book on sleep is its emphasis on the autonomic and respiratory systems. This volume is, I believe, the first to explore these topics systematically and to blend phe nomenological description with possible cellular mechanisms and ties to clinical pathology. As such, this book should find an important place in the library of workers in the fields of sleep research, autonomic and respiratory physiology, and related neuroscience disciplines; it also belongs in the li brary of clinicians concerned with the disorders of sleep. This overview of topics and chapters gives an indication of their cath olicity.