Sleep and Brain Activity Research Proposal Essay

Sleep and Brain Activity Research Proposal
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Sleep and Brain Activity Research Proposal
Sleep is an essential process in all living organisms. Humans spend approximately one-third of their time sleeping. Getting quality sleep is important for survival, just as living organisms need food and water. “Research suggests that maintaining optimal neural performance and learning capabilities can be extremely difficult without proper sleep.” (Rasch & Born, 2013). Additionally, it is harder to concentrate when one is suffering from sleep deficiency. The brain functions that sleep regulates revolve around nerve cells communication (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2019). Recent studies established that sleep helps remove toxins in the brain that build up when a person is awake (Hamilton, 2013). Therefore, it is important to understand the relationship between sleep and brain activity to present solid findings of why people should sleep more.
Statement of the Problem
Researchers are constantly looking for ways to improve the learning process among the students. Many of the proposed techniques are focused on empowering the child's memory. Learning is a natural process as it entails our body’s inherent ability to interact with and adapt to the environment through sensory mechanisms (Armstrong, 2010). These sensory mechanisms are all regulated through the nervous system, where the nerve cells pass information from the environment to he brain on the needed adjustments. It is, therefore, important to assess whether there a natural way of improving the response of these nerve cells to the environmental changes to result in better learning. Answering this question requires an assessment of the impact of sleep on brain activity. Sleep is an essential process for brain function and cognition. It is, therefore, important to assess how sleep affects brain activity. Understanding this relationship will help provide appropriate recommendations supported with evidence on why people should be encouraged to have enough sleep.
Objectives
* To understand the relationship between sleep and learning process
* To recommend the minimum amount of time needed to sleep for proper learning.
Research Question
1 How does sleep boost an individual's memory?
Hypothesis
* HO (Null Hypothesis): There is no correlation between sleep and memory improvement among learners.
* H1: Sleep helps learners retain information better
* H2: Sleep makes learners have sharper minds and hence able to handle tasks faster
Literature Review
Several studies claim that sleep is significantly connected to the memory processes. According to Rasch and Born (2013), extensive research has confirmed that sleep facilitates memory retention for over a century. The authors introduce the concept of slow-wave sleep essential for memory consolidation and facilitate the underlying electrophysiological, neurochemical, and genetic mechanisms. Peng et al. (2020) conducted a study to assess the effect of total sleep deprivation (TSD) on working memory via the event-related potential (ERP). A total of sixteen college students performed working memory tasks as they rested. After 36 hours o...