BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
PRODID:UW-Madison-Physics-Events
BEGIN:VEVENT
SEQUENCE:0
UID:UW-Physics-Event-1000
DTSTART:20080122T180500Z
DURATION:PT1H0M0S
DTSTAMP:20260409T030727Z
LAST-MODIFIED:19700101T060000Z
LOCATION:4274 Chamberlin Hall
SUMMARY:Sleep need and synaptic homeostasis\, Chaos & Complex Systems 
 Seminar\, Chiara Cirelli\, UW Department of Psychiatry
DESCRIPTION:Any proposal about the function of sleep should be able to
  provide a convincing explanation of why the proposed function can onl
 y be fulfilled by sleep and not by quiet wakefulness. Otherwise\, why 
 would sleep--a potentially dangerous behavior characterized by loss of
  contact with the environment--be so universal\, and why would sleep p
 ressure be so overwhelming? I will discuss a novel hypothesis--the syn
 aptic homeostasis hypothesis (SHY)--which claims that sleep plays a ro
 le in the regulation of synaptic weight in the brain. SHY states that 
 during wakefulness many brain circuits undergo synaptic potentiation\,
  resulting in a net increase in the strength of synaptic connections b
 etween neurons\, and that the homeostatic increase in slow wave activi
 ty (SWA) during the subsequent sleep is a direct reflection of this sy
 naptic potentiation. SHY also predicts that SWA mediates synaptic down
 scaling\, which is tied to several beneficial effects of sleep\, inclu
 ding performance enhancement. In summary\, according to this hypothesi
 s\, sleep is the price we have to pay for plasticity\, and its goal is
  the homeostatic regulation of the total synaptic weight impinging on 
 neurons. I will discuss evidence supporting the hypothesis\, its impli
 cations\, as well as current limitations and unresolved issues.
URL:https://www.physics.wisc.edu/events/?id=1000
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR