Treating Sleep Disorders—Principles and Practice of Behavioral Sleep Medicine

Abstract

This chapter will outline the biological machinery currently known to underpin the stages of consciousness and the rhythms that modulate them. We will briefly outline the basic functions of our central nervous system and how most researchers divide and categorize the major workings of our brain with an emphasis on the basic behaviors of sleep and alertness and how these two entities are not categorical. During wakefulness, we are kept in an alert state by the workings of some of the most primitive divisions of our brain. However, there are times when a person might be awake but their descriptions of their state varies as a function of what time of day it is and how long they have been awake. Therefore, wake and sleep states are more nuanced; the neural explanations of this will be discussed in detail.