Insights into Sleep Research

This chapter aims to describe the fundamentals of sleep research. The focus is primarily on the question of sleep measurement. The gold standard in sleep medicine is the so-called polysomnography. Since this is very complex, alternative methods of recording such as actigraphy or subjective sleep measurements are also presented. Each method refers to different aspects of sleep and has advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, the change in sleep duration and sleep proportions depending on age will be presented. The last section introduces and discusses possible functions of sleep.