PMID-19191602 A New Hypothesis for Sleep: Tuning for Criticality.
- Their hypothesis: in the course of learning, the brain's networks move closer to instability, as the process of learning and information storage requires that the network move closer to instability.
- That is, a perfectly stable network stores no information: output is the same independent of input; a highly unstable network can potentially store a lot of information, or be a very selective or critical system: output is highly sensitive to input.
- Sleep serves to restore the stability of the network by exposing it to a variety of inputs, checking for runaway activity, and adjusting accordingly. (inhibition / glia? how?)
- Say that when sleep is not possible, an emergency mechanism must com into play, namely tiredness, to prevent runaway behavior.
- (From wikipedia:) a potentially serious side-effect of many antipsychotics is that they tend to lower a individual's seizure threshold. Recall that removal of all dopamine can inhibit REM sleep; it's all somehow consistent, but unclear how maintaining network stability and being able to move are related.
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