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Review
. 2022 Aug:56:101130.
doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2022.101130. Epub 2022 Jun 26.

Relations between sleep patterns early in life and brain development: A review

Sanna Lokhandwala  1 , Rebecca M C Spencer  2
Affiliations
Review

Relations between sleep patterns early in life and brain development: A review

Sanna Lokhandwala et al. Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2022 Aug.

Abstract

Sleep supports healthy cognitive functioning in adults. Over the past decade, research has emerged advancing our understanding of sleep's role in cognition during development. Infancy and early childhood are marked by unique changes in sleep physiology and sleep patterns as children transition from biphasic to monophasic sleep. Growing evidence suggests that, during development, there are parallel changes in sleep and the brain and that sleep may modulate brain structure and activity and vice versa. In this review, we survey studies of sleep and brain development across childhood. By summarizing these findings, we provide a unique understanding of the importance of healthy sleep for healthy brain and cognitive development. Moreover, we discuss gaps in our understanding, which will inform future research.

Keywords: Brain development; Early childhood; Learning; Napping; Sleep.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The homeostatic sleep process as a function of nap status. Sleep pressure may accumulate more rapidly in habitual nappers (orange) than in non-habitual nappers (magenta). A nap (right) releases this additional pressure. For illustration purposes, sleep pressure is plotted relative to a morning waking baseline (which may in reality differ for these groups).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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