Midterm week means several things: winter is winding down, the semester is halfway over, that long-awaited spring break trip to the beach is close at hand … and an all-night study session, for many students, is inevitable.

The question boggling every student's mind is, do all-nighters work? Experts on campus say no.

"Sleep is essential for proper functioning of the brain," said Stephen Saunders, associate professor of psychology.

"Research on sleep deprivation suggests that it causes memory problems, reduces the capacity to concentrate, depresses mood, slows reaction times and impairs problem solving ability," Saunders said.

According to sleep researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, Saunders said, the human brain can only sustain alertness and attentiveness for around 16 hours. After that point, "mental fatigue and its consequences become readily apparent," he said.

Ronald Clohessy, a part-time English faculty member and nurse, agreed with Saunders and listed examples of an all-nighter's physical effects.

"Sleep deprivation can lead to susceptibility to and prolonged illness, high blood pressure, impaired glucose tolerance and weight gain," Clohessy said. "The weight gain occurs as the result of the hormone leptin that makes one 'feel full.' Less sleep leads to less of the hormone resulting in an increased appetite."

According to Clohessy, most experts recommend people ages 16 to 65 get between six and nine hours of sleep per day; however, recent studies suggest that from ages 13 to early 20s, individuals need an average of 9.2 hours.

Saunders cited a sleep study done at the University of Pennsylvania in which students were asked to reduce the amount of sleep they got to less than six hours a night for two weeks, as evidence that less sleep can and does have adverse effects.

Though the students emotionally adjusted to their new sleep pattern, the sleep deprivation had a "profound and cumulative effect on their cognitive performance," Saunders said.

"Simply put, the subjects couldn't think as quickly or as accurately. By the end of the study, the subjects couldn't even concentrate well enough to succeed at simple tasks such as pushing a button when a light flashes," he said.

According to Clohessy, most professors can tell the difference between work done during a last-minute all-nighter compared to projects completed over an extended period of time.

"I most certainly can tell when a student writes a last-minute paper," he said. "The most identifiable characteristic is inconsistency. Work that is produced as the result of an all-nighter or even a last-minute daytime effort generally has good moments marred by sections in which it's clear that the conceptual, organizational, mechanical issues are not the result of lack of knowledge but rather lack of attention."

Nonetheless, students still fall into the traps of last-minute study efforts that result in all-nighters. College of Business Administration sophomore Dan Fister, for example, said he pulled an all-nighter in preparation for Saunders' Psychology One course in the 2004 fall semester.

"I pulled an all-nighter for Saunder's course, and it didn't pay off. I did it because I wasn't prepared beforehand," Fister said.

Saunders summarized his beliefs about all-nighters.

"If a student is interested in getting good grades, the best advice is to choose a major that doesn't require any brain-related activity," Saunders said. "If that's not possible, then do your best to get adequate sleep."