Understanding the Need for Sleep to Improve Cognition

The restorative function of sleep is shaped by its duration, timing, continuity, subjective quality, and efficiency. Current sleep recommendations specify only nocturnal duration and have been largely derived from sleep self-reports that can be imprecise and miss relevant details. Sleep duration, preferred timing, and ability to withstand sleep deprivation are heritable traits whose expression may change with age and affect the optimal sleep prescription for an individual. Prevailing societal norms and circumstances related to work and relationships interact to influence sleep opportunity and quality. The value of allocating time for sleep is revealed by the impact of its restriction on behavior, functional brain imaging, sleep macrostructure, and late-life cognition. Augmentation of sleep slow oscillations and spindles have been proposed for enhancing sleep quality, but they inconsistently achieve their goal. Crafting bespoke sleep recommendations could benefit from large-scale, longitudinal collection of objective sleep data integrated with behavioral and self-reported data.

Automated summary

The restorative function of sleep is influenced by its duration, timing, continuity, subjective quality, and efficiency. Sleep recommendations based solely on self-reports may lack accuracy and important details. Sleep traits like duration, timing, and ability to withstand sleep deprivation can change with age and impact individual sleep prescription. Social norms, work, and relationships also affect sleep opportunity and quality. Restriction of sleep time can negatively impact behavior, brain activity, sleep structure, and cognitive function in late life. Enhancing sleep quality through slow oscillations and spindles is not consistently effective. Custom sleep recommendations could benefit from comprehensive objective sleep data integrated with behavioral and self-reported data.