Chapter 4.

3
Brain processes and free will, sleep, and altered states of consciousness.
Study Q: Describe the stages of sleep, how do they typically cycle through
the night? What roles do ultradian and circadian rhythms play in sleep?
Consciousness (Cont.)
- Intentionality and Agency: I move my arm, it moves when I decide.
Intention: Is followed by planning and executing the
movement
My subjective experience, I was the agent that
moved my arm
-Fried et al: Direct stimulation study, explored
presupplementary
motor cortex.
-Reily: Direct Stimulation Study
Found conscious feeling of wanting to move
Found conscious feeling of movement
occurring
Illusion of movement: Neural correlation of
intention
(wanting to move) and agency
(moving).
Intentionality: Is free will a part of the illusion?
-Libets research: Used EEG to measure motor cortex
activity. Observers
indicated when they
had decided to make a movement.
You start making a movement a second
before you
actually make it.
The brain is ahead of the conscious
experience.
Sleep
Individual differences in sleep requirements (Age and condition/Avg.
sleep/day)
REM Sleep (Rapid Eye Movement)
- Brain activity measured by EEG, same as when awake.
- Breathing and heart rate increase, rapid eye movements, facial
twitches, and sleep
paralysis.
Sleep Paralysis: sleep stage most associated with dreaming.
Consolidation of procedural memory
- Slow wave sleep and declarative memory
- studies that enhance REM: Slow enhanced procedural memory.
REM Deprivation

REM rebound on subsequent nights

Anxiety, Irritability, difficulty concentrating
Too much REM and depression
antidepressants interfere with REM sleep
role of serotonin in sleep
no REM due to brain damage

Sleep cycles: REM cycles get longer as you sleep

Sleep disorders:
- Insomnia: Inability to sleep
- Sleep Apnea: person stops breathing in sleep
- Narcolepsy: people fall asleep during waking hours
- Rembehavior: act our dreams
- Somnambulism: Sleepwalking
Why do we sleep?
-Restoration Theory: sleep is to rest/regenerate
Physiological/ neuropsychological recovery
Growth hormone
Circadian Rhythm Theory:
- Preservation and protection: Sleeping in a safe hiding place helps
prevent becoming
prey.
Evolution explanation
Patterns of sleep behavior across species
Facilitation of learning:
- Exercise, our brain needs time to practice.
- Infants experience more REM
- Sleep deprivation studies: No insomniac vs insomniac
- Only effects repetitive tasks
Neural Mechanisms of Sleep
- 2 important rhythm generators: - Ultraidan rhythm (many times per
day)
Sleep: 90 min cycle
Clock is in Pons
- Circadian Rhythm
Superchiasmatic nucleus (SCN)
Destroying SCN in rats makes sleep
polyiphasic
Dreaming
- when do we dream?
-awakened from REM 80%-90% of the time
- slow wave sleep: 60%

Why do we learn?
- exercise neural circuits
- fetus/ infant sleep patterns
- REM deprivation and procedural memory
- Tetris learning and sleep thought
Do dreams have meaning?
- Latent content (Freud) : A dream is symbolic and contains material
disguised to protect
the dreamer.
- Manifest content: The plot of a dream/ how it is remembered
Why are they threatening?
- Evolved threat rehearsal
Why are they so bizarre?
- Activation = Synthesis hypothesis
- Deactivation of frontal cortex