Abstract
Sleep is a vital physiological state that has been broadly conserved across the evolution of animal species. While the precise functions of sleep remain poorly understood, a large body of research has examined the negative consequences of sleep loss on neural and behavioral plasticity. While sleep disruption generally results in degraded neural plasticity and cognitive function, the impact of sleep loss can vary widely with age, between individuals, and across physiological contexts. Additionally, several recent studies indicate that sleep loss differentially impacts distinct neuronal populations within memory-encoding circuitry. These findings indicate that the negative consequences of sleep loss are not universally shared, and that identifying conditions that influence the resilience of an organism (or neuron type) to sleep loss might open future opportunities to examine sleep's core functions in the brain. Here, we discuss the functional roles for sleep in adaptive plasticity and review factors that can contribute to individual variations in sleep behavior and responses to sleep loss.
Highlights
Sleep is a physiological state that has been conserved across evolution, even noted in invertebrates lacking a centralized brain (Hendricks et al, 2000; Shaw et al, 2000; Zhdanova et al, 2001; Raizen et al, 2008; Singh et al, 2014; Nath et al, 2017)
Muscle spindles are sensory receptors that relay changes in the length of muscles to the central nervous system and are necessary for intact proprioception (Kröger and Watkins, 2021). These findings suggest that twitches during sleep provide the developing brain with opportunities to refine immature sensorimotor maps and better coordinate limb movements
Since sleep loss prior to training can impair acquisition/shortterm memory and disrupting sleep after training prevents memory consolidation (Ganguly-Fitzgerald et al, 2006; Seugnet et al, 2008), it is likely that sleep deprivation alters either synaptic connectivity or plasticity in mushroom body (MB) circuits
Summary
Sleep is a physiological state that has been conserved across evolution, even noted in invertebrates lacking a centralized brain (Hendricks et al, 2000; Shaw et al, 2000; Zhdanova et al, 2001; Raizen et al, 2008; Singh et al, 2014; Nath et al, 2017). Roles for Sleep in Plasticity elevated during periods of synaptic reorganization, including early development (Roffwarg et al, 1966; Shaw et al, 2000; Kayser et al, 2014), recovery from neural injury (Singh and Donlea, 2020; Stanhope et al, 2020), and memory consolidation (Walker et al, 2002; Ganguly-Fitzgerald et al, 2006). While these studies provide an important and promising link between early-life sleep episodes and the development of mature sensorimotor representations, the underlying synaptic mechanisms and long-term consequences of myoclonic twitch disruptions remain to be characterized in detail.
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