Sleep is for brain restoration?
The most prominent hypothesis of sleep function put forward by (now Emeritus) Professor Ian Oswald (Edinburgh University) in the 1970's was a restorative hypothesis, and in particular that deep sleep was important for body restoration and REM sleep was important for brain restoration. The hypothesis always had difficulty in obtaining direct measures of the brain because the technology was not up to it. This situation has changed over the years but the debate as to precisely what happens to restorative processes and the utilisation of energy bearing molecules (adenosine triphoshate) remains unchanged.
Dworak M, McCarley RW, Kim T, Kalinchuk AV, Basheer R. Sleep and brain energy levels: ATP changes during sleep. J Neurosci 2010;30:9007-16.
Critical Topics Forum SLEEP, Vol. 34, No. 7, 2011 DOI: 10.5665/SLEEP.1100
