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The issue of whether sleep is physiologically necessary has been unresolved because experiments that reported deleterious effects of sleep deprivation did not control for the stimuli used to prevent sleep. In this experiment, however, experimental and control rats received the same relatively mild physical stimuli, but stimulus presentations were timed to reduce sleep severely in experimental rats but not in controls. Experimental rats suffered severe pathology and death; control rats did not.
Rechtschaffen et al. (Fri,) studied this question.