Career
He has done research in the effects on sleep of exercise, mental work, stimulation, stress, and metabolism, as well as the effects of sleep deprivation. He also looked at sleep in reptiles and rats. Doctor Rechtschaffen went on to perform experiments in rats that demonstrated the lethal consequences of long-term (two weeks or more) sleep deprivation and Rapid eye movement sleep sleep deprivation.
He worked with Anthony Kales in developing the still-used criteria used by sleep laboratories to report human sleep scale data.
The system is commonly called R&K or Rechtschaffen and Kales, named after its key developers. R&K was used from 1968 to 2007 when The AASM Manual for the Scoring of Sleep and Associated Events was published by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM).
Rechtschaffen is currently Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Chicago. His family name means "upright" in German.
