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Elementary Central Nervous System Arousal

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Neuroscience in the 21st Century

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Abstract

Wakefulness is a state that an animal can consciously sense internal drives and external stimuli and actively respond to environment. Fundamental endeavors such as finding food and avoiding predators require conscious and wakeful behaviors in order to improve chance of survival. Elementary CNS arousal drives shift between states of sleep and wakefulness, to orient an animal towards important stimuli and to maintain wakefulness in the absence of important external stimuli. Specific motives and incentives explain why an animal does one thing rather than another. Arousal is modulated by circadian, homeostatic, executive/cognitive, emotional, and environmental factors, which can be simply summarized as internal drives and environmental pressures. Both conceptually and experimentally, we know that an animal’s level of arousal can be variable across minutes, days, seasons, and years. These variations are associated with behavioral characteristics such as mood, feelings, temperament, and overall cognition. While arousal’s role in promoting sleep or wakefulness is one of its most obvious, and well-studied, effects on behavior, the more subtle shifts between quiet waking, alertness and attention are equally important, with potential clinical manifestations.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rumbaugh Lab, Department of Neuroscience, The Scripps Research Institute, 130 Scripps Way, Jupiter, FL, 33458, USA

    M. Kilinc

  2. Pfaff Laboratory, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY, 10065, USA

    D. P. Calderon

  3. Laboratory of Neurobiology and Behavior, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY, 10065, USA

    Inna Tabansky, E. M. Martin & Donald W. Pfaff

Authors
  1. M. Kilinc
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  2. D. P. Calderon
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  3. Inna Tabansky
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  4. E. M. Martin
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  5. Donald W. Pfaff
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. Kilinc .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Neurobiology and Behavior, The Rockefeller University, New York, New York, USA

    Donald W. Pfaff

  2. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Rockville, Maryland, USA

    Nora D. Volkow

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© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Kilinc, M., Calderon, D.P., Tabansky, I., Martin, E.M., Pfaff, D. (2016). Elementary Central Nervous System Arousal. In: Pfaff, D., Volkow, N. (eds) Neuroscience in the 21st Century. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3474-4_79

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