week 5 workshop

Question 1

what is the hard problem of consciousness?

Answer 1

there is another aspect to sceientific studies - apart from systematically catagorising and analysing data we can observe(soft problem). the other apsect the ‘hard problem’ is consciousness [how do we know that we are expereicing things in the same way, HOW do we perceive things, HOW are we conscious?
HOW does consciousness arise? we cannot exactly observe this in science. as it is subjective.

An optimistic reductionist beleives that we will eventually find the answer through science.
Others believe we never will.

this question drives alot of neuroscience - trying to understand what consciousness is.

Question 2

How can we study consciousness?

Question 3

what is the EEG?

Answer 3

• Beger found electrical changes at the level of the scap that could be measured using amplifiers and record the electroencephalogram (EEG)
• EEG changes are not unitary and seemed to vary considerably across sleep, suggesting that there are differents stages of sleep.
  There is alot of activity in an EEG reading of an awake person. HOwever when the person fell asleep the activity lessened. Eg big waves as opposed to smaller waves when asleep
  When neurons fire in syncroncy they create big waves

Question 4

What is the Recticular activating system?

Answer 4

driving ability to be awake
the brain stem???
Brainstem recticular activating system were highly correlate with sleep vigilance states
cellular activation of the brainstem was spread throughout the thalam and cortext making it appealing as a brain mechanism of arousal

Question 5

What is REM?

Answer 5

rapid eye movement
he found that in as study when some children fell asleep he found that their eyes were moving under their eye lids ( Aerinsky, ,1954).
Later experiemntation found that this did occur during sleep, especially when dreaming

Question 6

what isd polysomnography (PSG)?

Answer 6

the typical montage
Recordings of:
2x sleep EEG 2x EMG 2x EOG 1x ECG
- breathing
-Leg movement

Question 7

What are the different stages of sleep?

Answer 7

nonREM
- stages N1-N3
- Slow Wave Sleep (SWS)
[stages 3 and 4]
- most of our sleep os Stage 2

REM
- Approx 90 min cycle (80-110mins)
-REM periods become longer across the night
-Approx 80% awakenings report dreams (10%)

Question 8

What is REM sleep Atonia?

Answer 8

Jouvet and Morrison in 60s
lessons to the pontine areas of brainstem areas in cats caused the release of moto activity during REM
- there is a spot in the brainstem thsat is actively suppressing actions during sleep [like a cat ‘running’ or meowing in their sleep]
HOwever, when he lesion was made in the cats brainstem the cats acted out the activities of the dream whilst asleep.

Suppressing muscle activity when asleep.

Question 9

what are some basic disorders of sleep?

Answer 9

generally it is in 2 broad categories:
- insomnia - cannot sleep at night
- hypersonic - falling asleep during the day

These 2 disorders are related. If you do not sleep at night you are likely to have hypersonic

Question 10

Define INsomnia

Answer 10

• Diffucrtly falling asleep, frequent awakening, ealry mornign awakening, lacvk of sleep.

up to 35% of adults report having it.

1 out of 5 children have insomnia, most of these childrens have a develpmental disorder

Question 11

What are the different types of insomnia?

Answer 11

Short term of transient insomnia (one to several nights)

Long term or persistent insomnia ( a month opr more)

idiopathic insomnia
- since birth or early childhood

Question 12

Define primary insomnia

Answer 12

this is when insomnia. occurs and can not be accounted for by a circadian disturbance, sleep fragmentation or drug effects

Question 13

What are some treatments for primary insomnia?

Answer 13

Usually, GPs will prescribe drugs but this is not meant to be a long-term treatment

This should be treated with CBT or CBTI(CBT especially for insomnia)
Sleep hygiene.

Natural remedies like melatonin is not necessarily better.
*circadian is sleep wake patterns.

Question 14

Define Sleep Disorder

Answer 14

Disorders that effect the structure of sleep, resulting in hypersomnia and or insomnia

these can be:
Sleep apnoea ( people stop breathing during the night. This is because muscles relax and the airway becomes smaller, snore then it can close up altogether, this can be treated with a machine[CPAP] - continuous positive airway pressure, this is defined as a sleep fragmentation disorder. )

REM sleep behaviours disorder (
Disorders of Arousal from NREM sleep ‘PARAsomnias”
- Night terrors
-Sleep walking
-sleep talking

anthing that affects sleep intergrity wil lead to hypersonia during the day.

Narcolepsy
Circadian Rhythm disorders

Question 15

what is REM sleep behaviours disorder?

Answer 15

release of muscular antonia during REM sleep.

Different diagnosis’
- NOturnal Seizures
-sleep terrors

Question 16

What are disorders of Arousal from NREM Sleep?

Answer 16

• Parasomnias:
  Sleepwalking
  Sleep talking
  Sleep terrors
  Little to no recall of awakening

You can grow out of it.
However, these children who experience it will most often sleepwalk or talk in adulthood.

They are still mobile, however, they are not conscious and have limited reactivity to the outside world.

These disorders can be quite complex, for example, they can maneuver around objects.

‘don’t wake a sleepwalker’’ is a myth.
Sleepwalking; Somnambulism.
Walking or performing complex behaviours whilst alseep.
They can become disorientated or confused when awoken.
This is most common in young children.

Question 17

are we conscious when we are asleep?

Answer 17

external and visual auditory processing is negated.
- sleep is possible with pinned open
-stimulus arousal thresholds ce across stages and night.

Pain perception is impeded

NREM and particularly SWS seems most impeded and devoid of conscious processing reported on awakening.

However, the answer is not fully black and white: When in deep sleep, you are most ‘unconscious’.

Question 18

What is the evidence that we are not unsconsious whilst asleep?

Answer 18

Reporting dreamin when awake
Operant and classical conditioning can be done when asleep.
Sleep can also be dependant on learning.
It can also be affected by the stimulus that the person is woken up by, eg you are more lilkely to react to a more alarming signal like FIRE as opposed to an alarm.
This is discrminiation or preattentie processing that occurs primarily during REM sleep.
People are more liekly to wake up to their own name.
Meaning that stimululs is still getting through to the brain whilst asleep.
pre-attenticve process: filtering information. may be an evolunionary measure.
The areas of the brain that light up in response to this stilmuly is the same as when awake. EG saying someones name.

Question 19

What is the Physiological Evidence(ERPS)

Question 20

What is the activation Synthesis (AS) Hypothesis?

Answer 20

REM sleep freely move (as not inhibited by brain stem). Which then activates the forebrain, this creates a blockade of exterceptove input, blockade of moto output,oculomotor activation
provision fo forewbrain with internally generated information.

Question 21

What is the AIM hypothesis?

Answer 21

Modification of previous hypothesis.
Primarly based on brain lesion data and implicated the forebrain as critical for dreaming not the brainstem.

Question 22

How do test this in humans?

Answer 22

In the lab with Elctrodes on them
then we wake them and ask them what was happening.

However this is very subjective, especially as these people are disroientated when just woken. and dreams are often very hard to remember

Question 23

Why is the before method not scientific?

Answer 23

Very subjective
people have trouble remebering dreams

Question 24

What is dream Generation vs Dream recall?

Answer 24

All dream experiments must rely on verable reports of awakening.
This leaves open to the question of whether the differences observed in dream reporting are differences in dream production or dream recall.

there was a study done that signified that the participants were able to lucid dream.

however when people were taught lucid dreaming, they woke up when they realised they were dreaming.

Question 25

what are PGO waves?

Question 26

How to test a thoery based on two variables that cannot be directly obeserved concurrently?

Question 27

why does stimulating EMs and PGO increases dream reports?

Question 28

WHy does inhibiting EMs and PGO decrease dream reports?

Question 29

How does stimulating the brain during sleep affect someone?

Answer 29

Magnetic/electrical inhibition of attention regions of the cerebral cortex.
tDCS
TMS

Question 30

What is the information integration theory?

Answer 30

the idea that the more integrated that information becomes in the brain, consciousness will arise of the interconnectivity.

as brain networks become more interconnected - consciousness arises.

He did this via TMS - stimulates electrical signal

He gave participants a TMS stimulus whilst awake.
However he presented this during NREM sleep and the activation was far less spread.

He then did this during REM sleep….????

Question 31

how to decode dream sequences using FMRI?

Answer 31

a monitor glucose metabolism of the brain.
can look at subtle differences in the brain.
Therefore can identify patterns of activity and map it back to visual stimuli?
This builds up a database of brain activity whilst dreaming. Therefore they can then predict what they are dreaming. Now using AI for pattern recognition.
AI can use brain activity data from FMRI and create pictures of dreams.
but people are trained first with stimuli.