Wakefulness

Wakefulness is a daily recurring brain state and state of consciousness in which an individual is conscious and engages in coherent cognitive and behavioral responses to the external world such as communication, ambulation, eating, and sex. Being awake is the opposite of the state of being asleep in which most external inputs to the brain are excluded from neural processing.

Effects upon the brain

The longer the brain has been awake, the greater the spontaneous firing rates of cerebral cortex neurons with this increase being reversed by sleep. Another effect of wakefulness (which may or may not be related to this) is that it lowers the small stores of glycogen held in the astrocytes that can supply energy to the brain's neurons—one of the functions of sleep, it has been proposed, is to create the opportunity for them to be replenished.

Maintenance by the brain

Wakefulness is produced by a complex interaction between multiple neurotransmitter systems arising in the brainstem and ascending through the midbrain, hypothalamus, thalamus and basal forebrain. The posterior hypothalamus plays a key role in the maintenance of the cortical activation that underlies wakefulness. Several systems originating in this part of the brain control the shift from wakefulness into sleep and sleep into wakefulness. Histamine neurons in the tuberomammillary nucleus and nearby adjacent posterior hypothalamus project to the entire brain and are the most wake-selective system so far identified in the brain. Another key system is that provided by the orexins (also known as hypocretins) projecting neurons. These exist in areas adjacent to histamine neurons and like them project widely to most brain areas and associate with arousal. Orexin deficiency has been identified as responsible for narcolepsy.

Awake (Donkeyboy song)

Awake is an English language hit in Norway for the Norwegian band Donkeyboy, their fourth single taken from their album Caught in a Life after singles "Ambitions" and "Sometimes" (both #1s for 13 and 8 weeks consecutively in the Norwegian Singles Chart) and "Broke My Eyes" (that reached #6).

"Awake" released in 2009 reached #8 in the Norwegian Singles Chart.

Charts

References

Awake (EP)

Awake is the first EP release from American rock band Bleed the Dream on their own label "Noize Pollution" in 2003.

Track listing

Personnel

Finch

The true finches are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. Finches have stout conical bills adapted for eating seeds and often have colourful plumage. They occupy a great range of habitats where they are usually resident and do not migrate. They have a world-wide distribution except for Australia and the polar regions.

Many birds in other families are also commonly called "finches", including some species in the very similar-looking waxbills or estrildid finches (family Estrildidae) of the Old World tropics and Australia; several groups of the bunting and American sparrow family (Emberizidae); and the Darwin's finches of the Galapagos islands, now considered members of the tanager family (Thraupidae).

Systematics and taxonomy

The scientific name Fringillidae, comes from the Latin word fringilla for the common chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs), a member of the family which is common in Europe. The name was coined by the English zoologist William Elford Leach in 1820. The Fringillidae family is divided into three subfamilies, the Fringillinae containing a single genus with the chaffinches, the Carduelinae containing 183 species divided into 49 genera, and the Euphoniinae containing the Euphonia and the Chlorophonia.

Finch (surname)

Finch is a popular surname. Finch was also the surname of the Earls of Winchilsea and Nottingham (now Finch-Hatton) and Earls of Aylesford (now Finch-Knightley).

People with the surname

Finch Restorations

Founded by Ray Finch in 1964, Finch is a car restoration company that also builds 1939 SS100 Jaguar and 1959 Ferrari Testa Rossa replicas. It is based in Mount Barker, South Australia.

External links