Sleep causes two major types of physiologic effect: First effects on the nervous system itself and second effects on other functional systems of the body.The nervous system effects seem to be by far the more important because any person who has a transected spinal cord in the neck shows no harmful effects in the body beneath the level of transection that can be attributed directly to a sleep wakefulness cycle.
Lack of sleep certainly does however affect the functions of the central nervous system.Prolonged wakefulness is often associated with progressive mal-function of the thought process and sometimes even causes abnormal behavioral activities.
We are all familiar with the increased sluggishness of thought that occurs toward the end of a prolonged wakeful period but in addition a person can become irritate or even psychotic after forced wakefulness.Therefore we can assume that sleep in multiple ways restores both normal levels of brain activity and normal"balance" among the differnt functions of the central nervous system.This might be likened to the "rezeroing" of electronic analog computers of this type gradually lose their "baseline" of operation; it is reasonable to assume that the same effect occurs in the central nervous system because overuse of some brain areas during wakefulness could easily throw these areas out of balance with the remainder of the nervous system.
The specific physiologic functions of sleep remain a mystery, and they are the subject of much research.
Lack of sleep certainly does however affect the functions of the central nervous system.Prolonged wakefulness is often associated with progressive mal-function of the thought process and sometimes even causes abnormal behavioral activities.
We are all familiar with the increased sluggishness of thought that occurs toward the end of a prolonged wakeful period but in addition a person can become irritate or even psychotic after forced wakefulness.Therefore we can assume that sleep in multiple ways restores both normal levels of brain activity and normal"balance" among the differnt functions of the central nervous system.This might be likened to the "rezeroing" of electronic analog computers of this type gradually lose their "baseline" of operation; it is reasonable to assume that the same effect occurs in the central nervous system because overuse of some brain areas during wakefulness could easily throw these areas out of balance with the remainder of the nervous system.
The specific physiologic functions of sleep remain a mystery, and they are the subject of much research.