Scientists may have found the purpose of sleep

Researchers from the Washington University in St. Louis say they discovered why we need sleep. Monitoring the brain activity of sleeping rats revealed the brain needs to reset its operating system to reach “criticality.” It is a state that optimizes thinking and processing, maximizing our brain’s capabilities. 

If this research is accurate, it shows that our brains are more complicated than we thought. It is so complex that we mix a physics concept with biology to explain why it needs sleep! Soon, it could open more insights into how we could improve our brains. More importantly, this study may encourage more to get enough sleep every night.

This article will explain the relationship between sleep, criticality, and brain activity. Later, I will discuss another study that reveals how love influences our minds. 

What is the purpose of sleep?

Washington researchers say sleep helps our minds reset their operating system to reach “criticality.” It is a term that describes one of the most important properties of Complex Systems in Physics and Computer Science.

Criticality describes a complex system at the tipping point between order and chaos. Physics professor Ralf Wessel explains, “At one extreme, everything is completely regular. At the other extreme, everything is random.”

“The brain is like a biological computer,” assistant professor Keith Hengen said. “Memory and experience during waking change the code bit by bit, slowly pulling the larger system away from an ideal state.”

“The central purpose of sleep is to restore an optimal computational state,” he added. He and his colleagues tested this assumption by tracking the brains of young rats.

They were looking for “little cascades of activity through the neural network,” also known as neural avalanches. They show how information flows through the brain. 

“At criticality, avalanches of all sizes and durations can occur. Away from criticality, the system becomes biased towards only small avalanches or only large avalanches,” Hengen explains.

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“This is analogous to writing a book and only being able to short or long words,” he adds. He and his team observed various avalanches emerging from rats waking up from restorative sleep.  

When brain activity decreases at a specific point, the rats are more likely to sleep. “The results suggest that every waking moment pushes relevant brain circuits away from criticality, and sleep helps the brain reset. 

The Washington University in St. Louis says sleep lets our brains balance too much order and too much chaos, also known as criticality. In other words, it lets our minds be logical and creative simultaneously.

Another amazing brain discovery

Science has demystified another brain activity we’ve known for millennia: love. Specifically, researchers from the Australian National University, the University of South Australia, and the University of Canberra discovered how love makes us “blind.”

They discovered that our brains have a unique reaction to romantic love. “It makes the object of our affections the center of our lives,” the University of South Australia said. 

Researchers from various Australian universities surveyed 1,556 young adults who said they were “in love.” The questions focused on their emotional reaction to their partners, their behavior around them, and how they focus on their loved ones. 

As mentioned, our brains turn our partners into the centers of our lives. Also, ANU lead researcher Adam Bode elaborated on the processes that cause romantic love.

“We actually know very little about the evolution of romantic love,” Bode says. As a result, every finding that tells us about romantic love’s evolution is an “important piece of the puzzle that’s just been started.”

“It is thought that romantic love first emerged some five million years ago after we split from our ancestors, the great apes. We know the ancient Greeks philosophized about it a lot, recognizing it both as an amazing as well as traumatic experience,” he states.

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“The oldest poem ever to be recovered was, in fact, a love poem dated to around 2000 BC,” the lead researcher adds. UniSA Adjunct Associate Professor Dr. Phil Kavanagh says the study shows romantic love affects behavior and emotion. 

“We know the role that oxytocin plays in romantic love because we get waves of it circulating throughout our nervous system and bloodstream when we interact with loved ones,” Dr. Kavanagh states.

“The way that loved ones take on special importance, however, is due to oxytocin combining with dopamine, a chemical that our brain releases during romantic love. Essentially, love activates pathways in the brain associated with positive feelings,” he added.

Conclusion

Experts from the Washington University in St. Louis say they found the purpose of sleep. They propose a good night’s rest helps our brain reset and bounce back from criticality.

Our minds need sleep to balance order and chaos, making us logical and creative. Moreover, it challenges the long-held assumption that dozing off only restores mysterious chemicals depleted while awake. 

Learn more about this sleep research paper in Nature Neuroscience. Also, check out the latest digital tips and trends at Inquirer Tech.