Sleep plays an essential role in health and cognitive performance. Known functions of sleep include recuperating from oxidative stress or toxins accumulated during wakefulness, 1 replenishing energy stores 2 and synthesis of macromolecules, such as growth hormones. 3 They also include executive functioning, 4 memory consolidation, 5 immuno-protection 6 and repair of neural damage. 7 New functions of sleep are still being discovered, such as its role in driving brain development. 8 The amount of sleep peaks during foetal and neonatal life, and this is also a time of rapid brain development. 9 Research has also shown that sleep quantity and brain development both gradually decrease across a person's lifespan. 9 Several studies have shown that sleep deprivation during early development has a detrimental impact on brain maturation, 10,11 and this suggests that sleep is important for brain development. However, there is still a considerable lack of clarity about the nature of the relationship between sleep and brain development and how this relates to the different states of sleep. This review looks at the current understanding of the role of sleep in brain development across the different development stages and focuses on the distinct functions of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM (NREM) sleep. There is a scarcity of experimental studies on the relationships between sleep deprivation and brain development in human newborns or young children for ethical reasons. Consequently, most studies have focused on animals or older children and adults and it is important to take care when translating these results to the developing human brain. This narrative review provides a concise overview of the human brain and sleep development, respectively. It also explores the role of sleep in brain development.

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