Henry Carmel 2/2/12
Core Biology I Honors C/D Block Mr.
Ippolito
Those
days in school when you had little to no sleep the last night can be really
tough, and it can seem that you simply can’t focus. Well, according to a recent study, that may be because some
parts of your brain are asleep, even if you’re totally awake. Using common lab rats as their test
subjects, scientists noted the electrical activity of brains in rats forced to
stay up longer than normal. Researcher Tononi notes, “Rats take lots of siestas,”
so, the scientists needed to use toys to distract the rats and keep them up for
a few hours longer than their normal routine. After their experiments, scientists observed, “problem
solving brain regions fell into a kind of “local sleep” -- a condition likely
in sleep-deprived humans too.”
However, when parts of the rats’ brains entered these sleep-like states,
it was impossible to tell that they were any different state of being awake. Their studies show however, that the
rats were in fact, fully awake.
But, these periods of “local sleep” are not good for you. Scientists performed experiments on the
rats to see if they could still perform difficult tasks while sections of their
brain were asleep. For example,
the rats were supposed to use their paws in order to reach sugar pellets, but
the sleep-deprived animals had a very hard time completing the task. After more tests, Tononi and her
colleagues discovered that while the rats were awake, their neurons fired
“frequently and irregularly.”
While when the animals slept, their neurons fired much less often and were
described as a “slow wave.” The
neurons in sections of over-tired rats’ brains were found to fire very
similarly if not the same as neutrons rats experienced during sleep. “According to one leading theory, since
neurons are constantly “recording” new information, at some point the neurons
need to “turn off” in order to reset themselves and prepare to learn
again.” So if this is correct,
that means that a person lacking the necessary amount of sleep will reach a
point where he/she can no longer take in information successfully, something
that would not be very helpful in school where note taking and understanding is
very important. These kinds of,
“local sleep,” negatively effect your decision making and most likely cause you
to make stupid errors, because some of the parts of the brain that fall asleep make
judgments and decisions. In
conclusion, although you may not know it, if you lack the proper amount of
sleep necessary, parts of your brain may go into a, “local sleep,” negatively
effecting your decision making skills and most likely making you make dumb
errors.
This
article is relevant to me and I would think most students at Bronxville because
many nights as a result of our work, we are forced to go to bed later than we
want, resulting in us being tired and lazy at school the next morning. And although we may feel slightly more
awake as the day proceeds, there are sections of our brain that are dormant,
and could cause us to make careless or stupid errors. Sleep is an extremely important thing and should be
stressed, because no wants to do poorly on a test solely because they didn’t
catch enough z’s the last night.
This
was a well-written article that successfully supported its points with specific
details and experiments performed by Tononi and her colleagues. The many experiments and conclusions
that resulted from them gave me the impression that the author’s information
was very strongly supported. For
example, if a rat could not perform a challenging task while sleep-deprived, it
gives us good reason to believe that humans could quite possibly struggle while
sleep-deprived as well. The
breaking of the article into separate sections also impressed me, and the
information presented in the final paragraph displayed how this could affect us
and what we should do to prevent it.
There is nothing in this article that I could suggest improvement upon.
Dell'Amore, Christine. "Is Your Brain Sleeping While
You're Awake?" Nationalgeographic.com. National Geographic News, 27
Apr. 2011. Web. 02 Feb. 2012.
<http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/04/110427-sleep-deprived-brains-nature-science-health-rat-asleep-awake/>.
never knew that brain is sleeping when im awake
ReplyDeleteCore Biology John Flannery
ReplyDeleteReview Comment 2/5/12
“Is your brain sleeping while you’re awake?” is an article written by Christine Dell’ Amore about how the amount we sleep directly affects our decisions and actions. She writes that based on recent studies on common lab rats, parts of your brain could fall asleep while you’re completely awake. My classmate Henry Carmel did a really nice job reviewing this article. Henry impressed me in the way that he clearly explained the experiment mentioned in the article. He explained that by forcing a rat to stay up longer, it is harder for them to perform tasks the next day. Retrieving a simple sugar pellet becomes more difficult after the rats are sleep deprived the previous night. I really appreciated that Henry related the problem of sleep deprivation to Bronxville High School because I often stay up too late to finish homework, and end up making stupid mistakes on tests or class work the next day. Finally I liked that Henry clearly explained how the brain is affected by the lack of sleep and specifically which parts of the brain could “fall asleep” if you don’t get enough sleep the night before.
Henry Carmel’s review of the article “Is your brain sleeping while you’re awake?” is well written, but could be approved on a few notes. Although I understood the section of the article explaining what happens in the brain when it “falls asleep”, it could be a bit difficult for others who are not familiar with the vocabulary. So I suggest that the explanation of the science behind the experiment be addressed a little bit simpler for those who don’t know the function of a neuron in the nervous system. Other than that small suggestion I really have no other critique for the review. I thought Henry really did a great job mentioning the important points in the review and making it relatively clear for the readers.
Before I read this article I just thought that sleep wore away as the day went on. However Henry brought to my attention that my brain could actually be asleep when I’m fully awake. This really opened my eyes to how important my sleep is. Reading this article and its review should influence everyone because as long as we keep staying up late and not getting the proper amount of sleep, we will continue to make stupid mistakes and errors on exams. I enjoyed reading this article by Christine Dell’ Amore and its review by Henry Carmel and I suggest that my other classmates read it as well.
Henry did an excellent job summarizing the article, “Is Your Brain Sleeping While You’re Awake.” He used simple language that was easy to both follow and understand. Henry also did an excellent job of providing the reader with details of the experiment itself and did not just discuss the results that were found. Lastly, I thought Henry’s summary did a fabulous job of relating the article and research to students in the Bronxville School.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I thought Henry did a fabulous job with his summary, I think there were some aspects he could have improved upon. Although his first paragraph provided us with a lot of detail, I thought it was a little longer and less concise than it needed to be which made it harder to follow. Also, although the majority of his summary used simple language, at times he used scientific words unfamiliar to many readers and did not further discuss what they meant.
Henry did a fantastic job summarizing and informing us about the negative affects of not getting enough sleep. Before reading Henry’s summary, I had no idea that not getting enough sleep would actually affect your brain so much that some of it remained asleep, even when you were awake.
This article was, overall, reviewed well. Firstly, I thought that the describing of the experiment methods was really well done. The reviewer did a nice job summarizing the different steps the researchers took in their study and what that actually proved. They also did a good job at converting the scientific jargon into a conversational tone. For example, at the many points they spoke of specific events occurring in the brain, all necessary terms were explained so as to be understandable by a general audience. I also thought that the article was well selected, as it is relevant to high school students. Analogously comparing students’ sleep deprivation with the rats’ in this experiment put the purpose of the article into focus.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do have a couple suggestions. First off, I think the reviewer would have benefited from reading the article more critically. What I mean is that every experiment has its flaws, even if it is published and peer reviewed. So, I think the reviewer should have found the holes, and also told us if these results were legitimate or statistically significant. Also, I would have liked to know if the researchers commented on any future research that would be explored.
That being said, I was still impressed with this article review. I was really intrigued by this experiment as a whole, and its applicability to high school life, and I think that says a lot about the reviewer’s technique because he did a good job catching my attention. I think there’s a lot more to figure about our brains, and I’m glad to have learned another piece.
My peer Henry Carmel reviewed, “Is your brain sleep while you’re awake?” He did a great job reviewing this article through his tone. He segued through points in the article nicely and kept the reader wanting more. Also, Henry really picked a nice article because this seems apparent in many teenagers’ lives today, an interesting review came from an interesting topic. Lastly, Henry did a great job in organizing the events in a logical way in order for the reader to get the most out of the review. One Suggestion I have for Henry is that he needed to explain some things more clearly. Not being in the scientific field I don’t really understand terms like “local sleep” and/or “Siestas.” Another thing Henry needed to do was mention prior studies conducted in this topic by other groups. If that were there it would really explain both sides of the idea. One thing that amazed me from reading this review was the actual fact that the brain could possibly be sleeping while you are fully awake. I know that the entire article is about this one topic and its kind of general but I really was amazed by that fact. In the end Henry did a great job of summarizing the article and sharing his thoughts with us.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading my fellow classmate, Henry Carmel’s review on the article, “Is Your Brain Sleeping While You’re Awake?” I was very impressed by his straight forward and well developed response that truly summarized the article. One thing I thought Henry did a great job presenting in his review was the connection to me as a high school student. It made reading the article more relevant to me and thus made me feel more interested in the topic at study. Henry also did a good job explaining the experiment and he really laid out process so that it was clear to me exactly how the scientists tested their hypothesis on sleep affecting brain function. Another thing I thought Henry excelled upon in his review was his constant and well timed incorporation of quotes from the original article. This really helped support the points in his review and were done smoothly and flawlessly. One thing Henry maybe could improve upon in his article is the further development of his argument and providing more examples of the detrimental effects of not achieving enough sleep. Another thing Henry could improve on is maybe providing the readers of his review suggestions on exactly how much sleep a person needs in order to be void of the experiences of not enough sleep on the brain. After reading both the article and Henrys review I was amazed that are brains are so vulnerable to lack of sleep and how different parts of the brain can just shut off even during the day when a person is up and awake. Overall, Henry did a great job summarizing a surprising and truly startling article.
ReplyDeleteI thought that Henry Carmel’s review of the article on the effects of sleep deprivation was informative and very relevant to students. First off, I thought that Henry did an excellent job of catching my attention. His first statement drew me into the article because as a student, I am all too familiar with the effects of sleep deprivation. I also thought that Henry did a good job explaining the scientific experiment. Henry explained how sleep deprived rats had a hard time completing simple tasks, such as using in their paws in order to reach sugar pellets. Henry was also very thorough in his summary of the article; the analysis on the effects of sleep deprivation was well written. He explains how sleep deprivation causes poor decision making because one’s brain goes into a period of “local sleep,” where certain parts of the brain are asleep even though the person is awake.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing that bothers me with this review is that a comparison with a rat’s brain functions is not entirely similar to our brains. I imagine that a rat’s brain is much simpler than a human’s, so results from experiments on rats probably could not be directly applied to human behavior, since there are more variables that are involved with human psychology. An explanation of the similarities between a rat’s brain and a human’s brain would resolve this issue however. Also, I thought that Henry could have done a better job explaining the role of the neurons, since an average person probably wouldn’t know that. If he had gone a bit more depth behind the neuroscience, I think this review would have been a bit clearer.
Overall, I was impressed by this article because it educates people on why sleep deprivation is so detrimental to one’s health. I’m sure that everyone has heard that lack of sleep result in loss of concentration the following day, but most people don’t know why. This article clearly explained the scientific basis for this occurrence.
Henry did a very nice job of reviewing the article “Is Your Brain Sleeping While You’re Awake”. The original article was split up into many short paragraphs but Henry summarized and combined them all nicely. This made it easier to read than the article itself. I liked how Henry mentioned times in school when it is very hard to focus because I can relate to situations like that. I also liked all of the information Henry included about the experiments, he added all of the specific things that the scientists were doing with the rats. This really allowed me to picture what the scientists were doing and he explained some complicated things and made them easy to understand.
ReplyDeleteTo make this good review even better, Henry could have broken down the first paragraph into shorter ones, separating the experiment from the explanations of the effects of a lack of sleep. He also could have explained a few more things in more detail, such as the neuron section because it was hard to understand.
The thing that amazed me about both the article and the review is that a person’s brain can be asleep while they are awake. Although I have felt like this many times, it had never occurred to me that my brain was actually asleep.