Regarding sleeep and brain development, there is a well-established connection between
REM sleep and CNS development, and not coincidentally, infant animals tend to get a
whole lot of REM.
Recent exciting research suggests that although the amount of REM declines during the
life cycle, REM remains important for consolidating certain kinds of learning (motor
skills is one type I can recall) and Stage IV sleep is important for long-term
consolidation of rote memory-type tasks.
Robert Stickgold is one of the researchers involved in this stuff, there are others.
Nancy Melucci
TUI
