JAD ABUMRAD: This is Radiolab. You are Robert Krulwich.

ROBERT KRULWICH: Robert Krulwich. It's my name. And you're ...

JAD: Jad Abumrad. And today, our topic on Radiolab is sleep.

ROBERT: Yep. It is something that all of us do. We can't help but do it. It's dangerous to do.

JAD: It's so good!

ROBERT: It's so good. and it's universal.

STEVEN LIMA: Think about it. You know, sleep is dangerous. And if sleep could have been circumvented in some way, natural selection probably would have found a way to do it.

JAD: That's Steve Lima again from Indiana State University.

STEVEN LIMA: Because it would be such a great idea to not sleep.

JAD: Don't I know it.

ROBERT: [laughs]

JAD: But there are times when you just can't sleep. Maybe you're one of the 35 million Americans—I am—who has chronic insomnia.

ROBERT: Yeah.

JAD: You just can't sleep. You don't know why. It just doesn't happen. Or maybe you do it to yourself, and you pull all-nighters for school, or you have to drive long distances. Or—and here's what we want to turn our attention to next—maybe it is done to you.

ROBERT: Hmm.

JAD: That's the case with producer Hannah Palin. She kept this audio diary of her own experiment with sleep deprivation.

[baby crying]

JAD: She has an 18-month-old son.

HANNAH PALIN: It's 2:54 for the record. Today was my first day back at work. We were discussing budgets. I just—I just—I couldn't even articulate what it was that I was seeing on the computer screen and try to communicate that to the curator that I work for. The words didn't come. [whispers] Lie down on me. Instead of saying, "Well, Nicolette. I believe that that choice was made because—" no, no. All that came out was like, honey buckets. I mean, nothing. Nothing would come out. There's just no brain cells, really. Darn, I almost had him asleep there. So anyway, that was my first day back at work.

[baby screaming]

HANNAH: 2:47. Dominic will not sleep. I don't know why. And I'm trying to get him to sleep and kind of at my wits end. Oh God, this just sucks. Totally sucks. Here's the funny thing. Everybody has a theory. And I was talking to my sister-in-law tonight, and her theory is that he's not getting enough milk because milk has some agent in it that would help him sleep. And he doesn't like milk. It's true. Other people say, "Oh, if you just would exercise him. If he just gets fresh air and exercise, he'll sleep all night." "If you just let him cry, he would sleep all night." "If you just would do whatever it is we're not doing, he would sleep all night."

[baby crying]

HANNAH: And there's this feeling like—there's a feeling like I am doing it all wrong, and that I'm a failure as a parent, and I don't know how to do this. Come here, sweetie. Come. Come on. Come on. Come on.

HANNAH: So anyway, I needed to record just one thing really quickly, and that is that yesterday and today, I've been struck by—I've been struck by these waves of satisfaction and delight with being alive in this amazing landscape with a funny kid. Mountains and water, and I don't know, maybe it's just getting a little more sleep in the last couple of days, but I suddenly feel like, wow, I'm so lucky. Okay, I've gotta take my kid to play now. Here we go! [singing] Do you know the muffin man? The muffin man.

HANNAH: Okay, that whole I'm loving life? Yeah, that's all gone now, and it's pretty much because Dominic won't take a nap. Well, he came home from the beach, which I thought would wear him out. Then we sat down and read some stories, which for some reason—and I realized that an element to the sleep deprivation and an element to this whole thing is that I get angry from having my own needs subverted to the needs of this little tiny person, which, when you're not sleep deprived, is not a big deal.

DOMINIC: I tired.

HANNAH: I'm tired.

DOMINIC: I'm tired.

HANNAH: I don't want to wish a minute of Dominic's childhood away because it's so precious to me. But damn, I am looking forward to that moment when I'm able to say, "Honey, time to go to sleep," and he does it. Tired? Not tired?

DOMINIC: Just talk.

HANNAH: Close your eyes, bug. Close your eyes. There's my personal take on what it's like to be sleepy and to crave sleep as much as you crave water or breath. I crave it!

JAD: [whispers] Thanks to Hannah Palin. And her son Dominic, and her husband Steve. I know. Poor Hannah.

ROBERT: But there is a science question lurking in the background, which is when—you know, when Hannah was so tired, why does she feel that way? You know what ...

JAD: Because she's—she hasn't been sleeping well.

ROBERT: Well yeah, but what makes her—you know, what is the essence of tiredness?

JAD: Lack of sleep. Hello?

ROBERT: No, chemically. I'm asking you chemically, what is happening to her? If you were way down in her cells, could you see something tired-like going on? That's what I mean.

JAD: That's a good question, actually.

ROBERT: Good. I'm glad you think so. Because I know a guy who has a theory about this.

ALLAN PACK: Did you see Tiger yesterday?

ROBERT: Tiger Woods?

ALLAN PACK: He's just unbelievable. He had the best round of anybody. I mean, the guy is unbelievable!

ROBERT: This is Dr. Allan Pack, and in addition to being a rabid golf fan, he's also a rabid—can you be a rabid biologist?

JAD: [laughs] Sure.

ROBERT: At the University of Pennsylvania, he's been looking at sleep down at the cellular level. And one thing that he's found over and over and over ...

ALLAN PACK: And that's been shown in mouse, it's been shown in rat, it's been shown in fruit fly.

ROBERT: Is that inside certain cells in all those different animals, when they're sleep-deprived ...

ALLAN PACK: Eventually what happens is you don't get proteins properly folded.

JAD: Excuse me?

ROBERT: [laughs

JAD: Proteins properly folded?

ROBERT: Mm-hmm.

ALLAN PACK: A phenomenon called the unfolded protein response.

JAD: What on Earth does that mean? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

ROBERT: You're asking why do you need proteins to properly fold?

JAD: Yeah, I guess that's what I'm asking.

ROBERT: Well, you're made of proteins. Proteins are the essence of you, so if your proteins are misshapen, if they're not folded properly ...

ALLAN PACK: If you don't fold the proteins properly, they don't have the right three-dimensional structure, and as a result, they start accumulating inside the cell. And then these different unfolded proteins can aggregate together and form clumps. Clumps inside the cell and essentially clog it up. And it's really quite toxic to cells.

ROBERT: Clumpiness equals tiredness would be his formula. But remember when Hannah was so exhausted?

JAD: Yeah.

HANNAH: God, this just sucks.

ROBERT: Well, because she hasn't slept much ...

HANNAH: Totally sucks.

ROBERT: ... inside her cells, lots of these valuable little proteins have not folded properly. That, he thinks, is the consequence of not having enough sleep. So maybe what's going on is the cells can't do their business quite as well and things start to break down, and that adds up across the whole of your body to a feeling of [yawns]. But when she gets the sleep, remember when she's so happy?

JAD: Yeah.

HANNAH: I suddenly feel like, wow!

ROBERT: Because of the sleep ...

HANNAH: I'm so lucky.

ROBERT: ... a group of cleaner uppers have gone through her cells, removed the toxic and misshapen proteins, so that in effect, sleep is the best housemaid you've ever had in the hotel of you. And this idea, the idea of sleep as a cleaner upper, might even explain one of the most basic things about us as humans: how we learn. That's the notion of Doctor Giulio Tononi.

ELLEN HORNE: Testing, testing, testing.

ROBERT: And my producer Ellen Horne and I went to visit him at his offices in Madison, Wisconsin.

ROBERT: What are we expecting? What does he look like? We don't know what he looks like.

ELLEN: A football player.

ROBERT: A football player.

ELLEN: But like a quarterback or a tight end. Not like a linebacker.

ROBERT: Not like a linebacker. So big, but not overwhelming?

ELLEN: Yeah.

ROBERT: Yeah. How do you even know that?

ELLEN: Website. See, but I was totally wrong.

ROBERT: [laughs]

ROBERT: Now to be fair, he is a very attractive guy. He has sandy blond hair and glasses. He's actually more the sensitive guy intellectual than a linebacker.

ROBERT: Yeah, introduce yourself.

GIULIO TONONI: I'm Giulio Tononi. I am a professor of psychiatry here at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

ROBERT: But when it comes to the subject of sleep, which is his specialty, he takes sleep very seriously.

ROBERT: What got you interested in sleep?

GIULIO TONONI: Sleep is the annihilation of consciousness. So it's a terrible time in which everything disappears—the universe and yourself with it. I think if people didn't sleep and didn't have the unconsciousness of sleep, they possibly wouldn't even realize that consciousness is an enormous gift.

ROBERT: So being awake then is wonderful, but it's what happens when you're asleep, he says, that's what allows you to make very important connections in your life. And he noticed this first when he was connecting with, I believe it was a guitar, just playing music.

GIULIO TONONI: I used to play, for instance. I played classical guitar. I'm sure many people who play musical instruments know that you may train and train and train on a piece during the day and you get better, for sure, but you're never perfect. And then you sleep over it. The next day you wake up, you play it again, and now it's smooth, and, you know, it flows beautifully.

ROBERT: That happened to you?

GIULIO TONONI: It happened to me. It happens to lots of people.

ROB CHRISTIANSEN: That happened to me all the time. I discovered that sometimes if I worked on a piece and put it away, went to bed and got some rest, I had it better learned than if I stayed up all night cramming.

JAD: Yeah.

JEANNINE DUFREE: Definitely. There's one story, and I hadn't thought about this for a long time, but—well, first of all, Rob and I play in a band together.

ROB CHRISTIANSEN: The band is called the Sisterhood of Convoluted Thinkers.

JEANNINE DUFREE: And we switch instruments, like, a lot.

ROB CHRISTIANSEN: She's usually the bass player.

JEANNINE DUFREE: I was gonna play drums.

ROB CHRISTIANSEN: So she had to learn how to play drums.

JEANNINE DUFREE: So we rented a cabin.

ROB CHRISTIANSEN: We went somewhere to rehearse. And at night, she was really just kind of practicing and practicing and trying to get this rhythm.

JEANNINE DUFREE: This one particular beat. Like, I worked on it, like, a lot. I just keep going and going.

ROB CHRISTIANSEN: I remember playing that one thing again and again and again.

JEANNINE DUFREE: Yeah. And I finally just gave up and went to sleep. And the next morning I got up and went, like, straight to the kit. And I just played it, like, immediately.

ROB CHRISTIANSEN: The butt hit the stool and she was gone.

JEANNINE DUFREE: Ba-da-da-da-da-da.

ROB CHRISTIANSEN: She could just do it.

JEANNINE DUFREE: I thought it was magic. You could just learn stuff in your sleep.

ROBERT: So wait, so in the middle of the night, somehow the things that your fingers did repeatedly, and the notes that you were using to propel your fingers, all those things somehow got into—got more—got better learned. So you learned overnight, or you—I mean, what does that have to do with—you remember better in the morning?

GIULIO TONONI: What happens is that the next day you're a bit better off. What happens during the night to make you better off? This is up for contention.

ROBERT: Tononi's contention is that sleep helps you remember by forgetting.

JAD: Uh, I don't know what that means.

ROBERT: [laughs] Let me explain to you what he's saying. He says there's a limited amount of space in your brain.

GIULIO TONONI: The real estate in the brain is pretty limited.

ROBERT: Limited amount.

JAD: That makes sense. It's a small little guy up there.

ROBERT: Yep. And yet every experience you have during the day ...

GIULIO TONONI: Is gonna take away some space.

ROBERT: ... uses up a little of what you got.

GIULIO TONONI: When you are awake, inevitably you learn, whether you want it or not. You are going around talking to me, having breakfast, going to work.

ROBERT: Then yakking on the phone with your friends, talking to your mom.

JAD: Very different from the friends.

ROBERT: Then going home, taking a bath.

JAD: Gotta take a bath? Yeah, I get it. I get it.

ROBERT: Everything you do during the day, every thought you think, no matter how small, it all causes your brain to form new connections.

ROBERT: This conversation as we're having it, is reshaping my brain.

GIULIO TONONI: Yeah.

ROBERT: Little pathways are forming that weren't there before I sat down.

GIULIO TONONI: Exactly. Whether we recognize it or not, lots of things are going to change your brain by the end of the waking day.

ROBERT: So if in the middle of the afternoon, you sit down with your guitar and you practice the guitar intently, those two hours, you're also making connections. And because you're concentrating, maybe you're making more connections than usual. These are guitar connections. And all those synaptic connections made during the day, one and the other upon the other, by the time you're ready for sleep at the end of the day, up in your head, it's a giant, unruly mess.

GIULIO TONONI: And that is where we think sleep kicks in.

ROBERT: Well, I'm gonna guess here, but I think you think that sleep is a garbage detail? It comes in and says, "Okay, you're done. You're done. You're done."

GIULIO TONONI: It's actually even simpler than that.

ROBERT: According to Tononi, there's not really a janitor who comes in and decides, "Okay, you have to leave. You get to stay." Nothing like that. Instead, he says, what happens ...

GIULIO TONONI: We think that during sleep, waves ...

ROBERT: Waves of electrical activity, kind of like a late evening bath, wash over your head. They start at the back of your head and they move to the front.

GIULIO TONONI: These waves are called slow oscillations.

ROBERT: And over the course of the night ...

GIULIO TONONI: One thousand times a night.

ROBERT: ... those waves wash through all the experiences of your day, all the little synaptic connections that you made all day long. And every one of those connections ...

GIULIO TONONI: All of them.

ROBERT: ... gets just a little bit softer.

GIULIO TONONI: They get weaker. Progressively, gracefully, they get weaker.

ROBERT: Even, he says, the things you want to hold onto, like the guitar.

ROBERT: Wait a second, wait a second. You were the one who said you learned how to play the instrument in the afternoon. You went to sleep and you played the instrument better in the morning.

GIULIO TONONI: Yeah.

ROBERT: Why would you wake up the next morning playing better? You should play more weakly, with less confidence and less memory. Because after all, you've just given the whole place a bath.

GIULIO TONONI: It's all relative, sir.

ROBERT: What he means by relative is this: that mess of new connections in your head?

JAD: Yeah?

ROBERT: Some of those connections are softer, some of those connections were louder. The random things you ordered for lunch, they're softer.

JAD: Okay.

ROBERT: But the guitar, because you spent so much time thinking about guitar technique, you spent so much energy on it, that's louder. So we're just measuring connections here. Now imagine that sleep is a big volume knob. So listen to what happens when you lower the volume on the whole day, lower and lower and lower. Now you hear how the softer stuff just falls away, you can't hear it anymore?

JAD: Yeah.

ROBERT: But the guitar, while it's getting softer too, because it was so loud to begin with, now it stands out a bit more clearly, no?

JAD: Yeah!

GIULIO TONONI: The signal, the synapses that have survived reasonably well are heard better because the background has become more silent.

ROBERT: So your ability to play the guitar better the next morning is not because you've learned skills overnight that you didn't have before, it's because all the other stuff taking up your brain has gone down in volume, and you're left with, relatively speaking, a better guitar fingering technique.

GIULIO TONONI: You put your finger on it.

ROBERT: [laughs]

ROBERT: So Mr. Tononi feels that sleep is a little bit like wind and rain, like the process of erosion. At the end of the day—or rather at the beginning of the morning—the things left standing are the things you need to know.

JAD: We should—we should go to break.

ROBERT: Okay. So coming up next, for those of us who can get to sleep? Next, our chance to dream.

JAD: This is Radiolab. I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: And I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: We'll continue in a moment.

 

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