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- Compared to other primates, sleep in great apes has undergone substantial evolutionary change, with all great apes building a sleeping platform or ‘nest’. Further evolutionary change characterizes human sleep, with humans having the shortest sleep duration, yet the highest proportion of rapid eye movement sleep among primates.
academic.oup.com/emph/article/2016/1/227/2802646Shining evolutionary light on human sleep and sleep disorders
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Today's chimpanzees and other great apes still sleep in temporary tree beds or platforms. They bend or break branches to create a bowl shape, which they may line with leafy twigs.
Jun 27, 2017 · So, according to Samson, the link between sleep and cognition is there for all great apes, including humans. But the unique sleep behavior that helps make us human is a little more complicated than making nests to get better rest. Great apes like chimpanzees and humans sleep in nests at night time.
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Millions of years ago, our ancestors lived, and probably slept, in trees. Today’s chimpanzees and other great apes still sleep in temporary tree beds or platforms. They bend or break branches to create a bowl shape, which they may line with leafy twigs. (Apes such as gorillas sometimes also build beds on the ground.) Our ancestors transitioned out ...
It makes sense that the threat of predators may have led humans to sleep less than tree-living primates, says Isabella Capellini, an evolutionary ecologist at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. In a 2008 study, she and her colleagues found that mammals at greater risk of predation sleep less, on average. But Capellini isn’t sure that h...
Yetish, who studies sleep in small-scale societies, has collaborated with Samson on research. “I do think that social sleep, as he describes it, is a solution to the problem of maintaining safety at night,” Yetish says. However, he adds, “I don’t think it’s the only solution.” He notes that the Tsimane sometimes have walls on their houses, for exam...
How much we sleep is a different question, of course, from how much we wish we slept. Samson and others asked Hadza study participants how they felt about their own sleep. Out of 37 people, 35 said they slept “just enough,” the team reported in 2017. The average amount they slept in that study was about 6.25 hours a night. But they awoke frequently...
Aug 3, 2016 · Compared to other primates, sleep in great apes has undergone substantial evolutionary change, with all great apes building a sleeping platform or 'nest'. Further evolutionary change characterizes human sleep, with humans having the shortest sleep duration, yet the highest proportion of rapid eye movement sleep among primates.
- Charles L. Nunn, David R. Samson, Andrew D. Krystal
- 2016
Scientists hypothesize that the stable environment of a nest allowed great apes to experience a deeper and longer sleep. Improved sleep quality eventually led to enhanced brain function, which increased intelligence in great apes. While nests improved sleep for the apes, sleeping in trees still limited sleep quality.
Apr 28, 2022 · Research by Samson and others in primates and non-industrial human populations has revealed the various ways that human sleep is unusual. We spend fewer hours asleep than our nearest relatives, and more of our night in the phase of sleep known as rapid eye movement, or REM.
