Sleepyheads’ brains veer from restful path
By Bruce Bower
A good night’s sleep seems to clear the brain and help the well-snoozed individual negotiate the flow of daily affairs.
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In contrast, a lack of sleep makes it difficult to carry out even mundane acts, such as conversing intelligibly or calculating a waiter’s tip. Initial investigations of brain activity in sleepy volunteers as they try to perform verbal and mathematical tasks have yielded intriguing clues about the nature of sleep deprivation.