Poor sleep has immediate negative consequences on cognitive abilities such as attention, memory, problem-solving, emotional processing, and judgement. Furthermore, there is mounting evidence that insufficient sleep over long periods of time increases the risk for cognitive declines, dementia, and lifestyle related diseases. Modern lifestyle and technology seem to have a critical effect on our biological clock and natural sleep patterns and may be a leading cause to why a large proportion of young people do not get sufficient sleep. This will immediately affect their learning abilities, and psychological and physiological health. We, and especially young people, have a naïve impression that we can cope with less sleep without causing substantial harm to ourselves, however large amount of research have pointed out some alarming results of sleep deprivation. The aim of this project is therefore to create awareness about the consequences of insufficient sleep and increase the knowledge about cognition and brain health amount young people.
Figure 1: Sleep occurs in cycles of approx. 90 min. Each cycle contains four different sleep stages, which are defined by the electrophysiological activity in the brain.
The “Sleep and Cognition”-project will provide an educational package containing a combination of theoretical and experimental teaching activities targeting high school students. The experimental part will allow the school classes to test, analyze and discuss the consequences of acute sleep deprivation on their cognitive performance. It will give the students a taste of how to conduct and process a scientific study by letting them acquire and handle their own data. The theoretical material will provide the students with scientific and educational knowledge about the mechanisms of sleep, brain biology and health, accompanied with theorical and debating assignments. The teaching material supports 5-7 study topics primary focusing on the STEM-areas, however psychological and sociological aspects of sleep will also be covered.
The hope for this project is to enhance the consciousness on the positive effects of prioritizing sleep, as well as arouse the students’ interest in human physiology, neuroscience, neurotechnology and biomedical engineering, by inviting them into the multidisciplinary science area of sleep and cognition.
Figure 2: The human body contains a biological clock called the circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm determines the daily natural hormone fluctuation, which keeps us awake during the day and makes us sleepy during the night. Unbalance in the circadian rhythm due to missing or displaced sleep can have major acute consequences for physical and cognitive abilities.
Funding: The project is funded by The Lundbeck Foundation.
