Sleep restores an optimal computational state in the brain

"Sleep is assumed to subserve homeostatic processes in the brain; however, the set point around which sleep tunes circuit computations is unknown. 

"Slow-wave activity (SWA) is commonly used to reflect the homeostatic aspect of sleep; although it can indicate sleep pressure, it does not explain why animals need sleep. 


"By recording cortical neuron activity continuously for 10–14 d in freely behaving rats, we show that normal waking experience progressively disrupts criticality and that sleep functions to restore critical dynamics. 

"Criticality is perturbed in a context-dependent manner, and waking experience is causal in driving these effects. 

"The degree of deviation from criticality predicts future sleep/wake behavior more accurately than SWA, behavioral history or other neural measures. 

"Our results demonstrate that perturbation and recovery of criticality is a network homeostatic mechanism consistent with the core, restorative function of sleep."

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