Dr Patrick McNamara is an Associate Professor of Neurology at Boston University School of Medicine and VA Boston Healthcare System. He is based in the Department of Neurology at Boston University School of Medicine. He is the director of the Evolutionary Neurobehavior Laboratory and was awarded an NIH grant to study the phylogeny of sleep. Dr McNamara is the recipient of a VA Merit Review Award for the study of Parkinson's Disease and several National Institutes of Health awards for the study of sleep mechanisms. He is also the author of Mind and Variability: Mental Darwinism, Memory and Self, An Evolutionary Psychology of Sleep and Dreams, and Nightmares: The Science and Solution of Those Frightening Visions During Sleep. Dr Robert Barton is a professor at Durham University and Director of the Evolutionary Anthropology Research Group. He has published numerous papers on the topic of brain evolution, and, in addition to an NIH-funded project on the phylogeny of sleep, he has been collaborating with Dr Charles L. Nunn on the application of comparative methods to problems in mammalian biology and physiology. Dr Charles Nunn is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. Dr Nunn completed his PhD at Duke University in biological anthropology and anatomy, and he conducted postdoctoral research on primate disease ecology at University of Virginia and University of California Davis. He has had academic appointments in the United States (University of California Berkeley) and Germany (The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology). He is an author of Infectious Diseases in Primates: Behavior, Ecology and Evolution, and his current research focuses on phylogenetic methods, disease ecology, and the evolution of primate behavior.

"This book is necessary reading for anyone working in sleep medicine. The reader will understand better why today, despite the abundant research reported in this book, we are far from understanding the entire function of sleep in humans. Yet at the same time, a good understanding can be gained about the evolutionary threads that can be perceived through phylogenetic analyses. We can use investigations of many different models to improve our knowledge of both animal and human sleep, and design protocols to pursue our quest to understand one of our vital functions. Mia Zaharna Christian Guilleminault, Division of Sleep Medicine Stanford University for American Journal of Human Biology

• 1. Introduction Patrick McNamara, Charles L. Nunn and Robert A. Barton; 2. Ecological constraints on mammalian sleep architecture Isabella Capellini, Brian T. Preston, Patrick McNamara, Robert A. Barton and Charles L. Nunn; 3. Sleep in insects Kristyna M. Hartse; 4. Schooling by continuously-active fishes: clues to sleep's ultimate function J. Lee Kavanau; 5. What exactly is it that sleeps?: the evolution, regulation and organization of an emergent network property James M. Krueger; 6. Evolutionary medicine of sleep disorders: toward a science of sleep duration Patrick McNamara and Sanford Auerbach; 7. Primate sleep in phylogenetic perspective Charles N. Nunn, Patrick McNamara, Isabella Capellini, Brian T. Preston and Robert Barton; 8. A bird's eye view on the function of sleep Niels C. Rattenborg and Charles J. Amlaner; 9. The evolution of wakefulness: from reptiles to mammals Ruben V. Rial, Mourad Akaarir, Antoni Gamundi, M. Cristina Nicolau and Susana Esteban; 10. Evolution of REM sleep Mahesh M. Thakkar and Subimal Datta; 11. Towards the understanding of the function of sleep: new insights from mouse genetics Valter Tucci and Patrick M. Nolan; 12. Fishing for sleep Irina V. Zhdanova.