Jenna Elliott
Period 4
AP Questions- Altered States of Consciousness
1. Sleep onset is the transition from wakefulness into sleep. Sleep onset usually transmits into non-rapid eye movement sleep. Under certain circumstances however, it is possible to transmit from wakefulness directly into rapid eye movement sleep. Rapid eye movement sleep, or REM, is one of the five stages of sleep that most people experience nightly. In REM sleep you have quick, random movements of the eyes and paralysis of the muscles. REM is the stage of sleep where you’re dreaming.
2. Sleep deprivation affects your ability to learn in two ways. Because you can’t focus as well, it’s more difficult to pick up information, so you can’t learn efficiently. It also affects memory, which is essential to learning. In children, sleepiness can lead to hyperactivity, also hampering learning. Teens may lose the focus, diligence, and memory capacity to perform well in school. Scientists measuring sleepiness have found that sleep deprivation leads to lower alertness and concentration. It’s more difficult to focus and pay attention, so you’re more easily confused.
3. Sleepwalking can run in the family. Identical twins are more likely to sleepwalk. If you have a parent, brother, or sister who sleepwalks, you're 10 times more likely to do so than someone from a family with no sleepwalkers. Other causes for sleepwalking can include being sleep deprived; on a chaotic sleep schedule, being stressed or being drunk. Taking drugs such as sedative-hypnotics, neuroleptics, stimulants, and antihistamines can also be a cause of sleepwalking.
4. Night terrors and nightmares have many of the same characteristics including terrifying thoughts running through your mind during sleep. However, Sleep or Night Terrors are different from Nightmares because children can be awakened from a Nightmare, talk about it, and remember it. A child with a Night Terror cannot be awakened from it, nor can they talk about it, and usually the child does not remember it the next morning. After a nightmare patients may wake up crying or upset, but they can easily tell you what they were dreaming about and what scared them. This may be because nightmares are more closely linked with psychological trauma. Another characteristic to remember is that sleep terrors tend to happen earlier in the night, usually an hour or two after bedtime during slow-wave sleep, whereas nightmares tend to occur later in the night, during REM sleep.
5. First proposed in 1977, the activation synthesis theories suggest that the physiological processes of the brain cause dreams. According to this theory, circuits in the brain stem are activated during REM sleep. Once these circuits are activated, areas of the limbic system involved in emotions, sensations, and memories, including the amygdala and hippocampus, become active. The brain synthesizes and interprets this internal activity and attempts create meaning from these signals, which results in dreaming. The initial publication of their research stirred up considerable controversy, particularly among Freudian analysts. Since many dream researchers and therapists invest considerable time and effort trying to understand the underlying meaning of dreams, the suggestion that dreams were simply the brain's way of making sense of activity during sleep did not sit well with many.
6. A drug that works against or blocks the effects of a neurotransmitter is defined as an antagonist. A drug that increases or pushes the effects is defined as an agonist. Some drugs can be both. This type of drug is called a mixed agonist-antagonist. This drug can be either depending on the dose. Drugs differ in their affinity from strong to weak. The tendency to activate the receptor is the efficacy of a drug. For instance, a drug that binds to a receptor but does not stimulate it is said to be high in affinity but low in efficacy. This type of drug would be an antagonist because it occupies the
