New Analysis Suggests Primary Function of Sleep Changes in Early Childhood
A new analysis showed that the sleeping brains of both infants and toddlers are concentrated in learning and memory support until they are about roughly two years of age when the activity of the brain' shifts to spend more time on maintenance and repair.'
A new analysis published in the Science Advances September 18 issue shows that the sleeping brains of both infants and toddlers are concentrated in learning and memory support until they are about roughly two years of age. At this point, the activity of the brain shifts in spending more time on maintenance and repair.
The study authors shared what they found most surprising was how abruptly the change seems to happen. The paper's senior author, Van Savage, a computational biologist and UCLA professor, described their finding as a transition phase similar to water that becomes ice.
Sleep patterns change at other phases in life, like during puberty, although not as noticeably as from two to three years of age.
These findings, the authors said, improve the understanding of how sleep affects the development of a child, not to mention, provides an essential contribution to arguments about sleep function.
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The Primary Role of Sleep
Even though humans are spending about one-third of their lives sleeping, the primary role of sleep and its pervasiveness within the animal kingdom remains unclear.
Furthermore, although it may appear instinctively that sleep is intended for rest, the amount of energy saved while sleeping is just about what an individual would get from consuming one hot dog bun, as indicated in the study.
Savage explained, "That is different than if you were sprinting," although not a big difference than when seated in a chair the whole night and reading.
The study's senior author also said that being unconscious and susceptible to predation or other dangers for eight hours every night is not worth saving energy.
Brain Activities
As specified in the research, brains are involved in two activities that may need unconsciousness. These are the maintenance and repair of the normal function's stresses, and the cells and their connections' reorganization "to support learning and memory."
Specifically, babies benefit from neural reorganization, which seems to take place in REM or rapid eye movement sleep, during the brain's most active state, and "the eyes flutter under their lids."
Essentially, the brains encode lessons and memories by creating distinctive brain cell networks, linking them at junctions, also known as "synapses."
As indicated in the research, the neurons of babies are extensively linked, making them extremely open to learning. However, the lack of concentration or reinforcement of specific neural pathways would mean babies lack mastery in things such as language, motor skills, and vision.
In addition, humans may have developed to discover those things after birth, as they are born in adjustable environments.
Say, babies hear adults speaking English, these little ones' sleeping brains prune away later, the synapses that would help them recognize sounds in the Chinese language, for instance, and strengthen the ones that encode English sounds.
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Sleep Changes Throughout Early Childhood
To study precisely how sleep changes throughout early childhood, the study authors came up with mathematical representations linking measures such as sleep time, metabolic rate, REM time, age, and brain mass "to maintenance and reorganization activity."
The represented 400 data points from past sleep studies on children whose age ranges from 0 to 15 years old.
As a result, the researchers found that neural activity linked to neural reorganization and REM sleep is most predominant before the age of 2.4 when babies spend 50 percent of sleep in REM.
Beyond this point, the study showed, reorganization steadies, REM time decreases to roughly 25 percent, and activity linked to the brain repair becomes prevalent.
As researchers validate and better understand such a shift, UCLA professor Gina Poe said, it may turn out to be an indicator to track and evaluate young children's progress.
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Sep 18, 2020 11:56 PM EDT
