End of Module 8 Quizzes

• Workers on certain submarines work 6 hours, relax 6 hours, and then sleep 6 hours. After weeks on this schedule, what happens to their circadian rhythm

  It continues producing the usual 24-hour rhythm.
• Why do people in Antarctica during the winter often find it difficult to work together?

  Their circadian rhythms drift out of phase with one another.
• For most young adults, what happens to mood as a function of time of day?

  Mood tends to be most pleasant in late afternoon or early evening.
• Why do people in eastern Germany awaken earlier, on average, than those in western Germany?

  The sun rises earlier in eastern Germany.
• Why do many high school students get worse test grades in the morning than in the afternoon?

  Teenagers tend to stay up late and awaken late.
• What evidence most strongly indicates that the SCN produces the circadian rhythm itself?

  SCN cells isolated from the body continue to produce a circadian rhythm.
• Light can reset the SCN’s rhythm even after damage to all rods and cones. Why?

  The SCN receives input from ganglion cells that respond to light.
• If you want to get to sleep on time, what should you avoid?

  Short-wavelength light late in the evening
• After the proteins TIM and PER reach a high level during the day, what causes their level to decrease at night?

  High levels of the proteins inhibit the genes that produce these proteins.
• When is melatonin mostly released?

  At night, for all species
• Of the following, which shows the LEAST brain activity?

  Coma
• Sleep spindles in stage 2 sleep appear to be important for which of the following?

  Consolidation of memory
• What do the high-amplitude slow waves of slow-wave sleep indicate?

  Synchrony among neurons
• Why is REM sleep also known as paradoxical sleep?

  It is deep sleep in some ways and light in others.
• At which time, if any, is slow-wave sleep most common?

  Not immediately, but during the early part of the night’s sleep.
• What tends to activate the locus coeruleus?

  Meaningful information
• What is the role of orexin with regard to wakefulness and sleep?

  It helps someone stay awake.
• Why are people unconscious during slow-wave sleep

  Inhibitory transmitters block the spread of activity in the cortex.
• If you awaken but find you temporarily cannot move your arms or legs, what is happening?

  Most of your brain is awake, but part of your pons and medulla remain in REM sleep.
• Of the following, which one is not associated with an increased probability of sleep apnea?

  Being female
• Narcolepsy is linked to a deficit of which neurotransmitter?

  Orexin
• Certain animal species have evolved to sleep very little under which of these circumstances?

  The environment is about the same 24 hours a day.
• How do whales and dolphins get oxygen at night?

  They sleep in just one hemisphere at a time.
• When frigate birds spend weeks at sea, what do they do about sleep?

  They sleep only in brief episodes, and not much overall.
• If we want to predict how many hours a day some species sleeps, which of these questions would be most helpful in making that prediction?

  What does the animal eat?
• Sleep often improves memory. How?

  Certain synapses become weakened, enabling others to stand out by contrast.
• Of the following groups, which one tends to spend the highest percentage of sleep in the REM stage?

  Infants
• According to the neurocognitive hypothesis, what are dreams?

  Dreams are thinking that occurs under unusual conditions.