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Long term potentiation (LTP) in the hippocampus is considered a cellular basis of learning memory. Sleep deprivation, especially rapid eye movement (REM) sleep deprivation, impairs learning and memory as well as LTP. Since most of the previous LTP studies were conducted in the in vitro condition, the full consequences of sleep deprivation (SD) in the living animal are yet to be found. Thus, I tested hippocampal LTP in living animals after 5 days of REM sleep deprivation to determine the effect of SD in vivo. SD also disrupts growth hormone (GH) release. Recent evidence indicates that GH regulates cognitive and hippocampal synaptic function. However, the relationship between GH and synaptic function during SD is not well established. Since the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) has an important role in inducing LTP, I hypothesized that loss of normal GH signals during SD would impair synaptic NMDAR expression and function, and treating SD animals with GH would restore normal NMDAR expression and function. To test my hypothesis, I treated animals wit