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"Why do we sleep? We spend a third of our lives doing so, and all known animals with a nervous system either sleep, or show some kind of related behaviour. But scientists still don't know what the point of it is. There are plenty of theories. Some researchers argue that sleep has no specific function, but rather serves as evolution's way of keeping us inactive, to save energy and keep us safely tucked away at those times of day when there's not much point being awake. On this view, sleep is like hibernation in bears, or even autumn leaf fall in trees. But others argue that sleep has a restorative function-something about animal biology means that we need sleep to survive. This seems like common sense. Going without sleep feels bad, after all, and prolonged sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture. We also know that in severe cases it can lead to mental disturbances, hallucinations and, in some laboratory animals, eventually death. Waking up after a good night's sleep, you feel restored, and many studies have shown the benefits of sleep for learning, memory, and cognition. Yet if sleep is beneficial, what is the mechanism? Recently, some neuroscientists have proposed that the function of sleep is to reorganize connections and "prune" synapses-the connections between brain cells. Last year, one group of researchers, led by Gordon Wang of Stanford University reviewed the evidence for this idea in a paper called Synaptic plasticity in sleep: learning, homeostasis and disease."

"Exposure to even dim light at night is enough to cause physical changes in the brains of hamsters that may be associated with depression, a new study shows."