Size and sleep: New research reveals why little things sleep longer

(Santa Fe Institute) Using data from humans and other mammals, a team of scientists including researchers from the Santa Fe Institute has developed one of the first quantitative models that explains why sleep times across species and during development decrease as brains get bigger. Crucially, the model identifies a sharp transition at around 2.4 years of age, where sleep patterns change in humans as the primary purpose of sleep shifts from reorganization, which is essentially learning, to repair.
Source: EurekAlert! - Social and Behavioral Science - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: news