What is it about?
REM sleep is a well known aspect of sleep, but actually still contains many mysteries. We found that within REM, about every minute there is actually a cycle that brain and body functions journey through . In mice we see it controlling eye movement, whisker movement, brain wave signals and cortical neuronal spiking. In humans brain wave signals, breathing and again eye movements are locked to this rhythm, suggesting this is a general part of mammal biology and fundamental to sleep itself.
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Why is it important?
We see that features ranging from breathing to eye-movements to even brain neuronal "spiking" activity are all tied together by this rhythm, but more work will need to be performed to reveal the full implications of this rhythm. By the way this enriches an old theory of REM having both "phasic" and "tonic" periods within it. Here we expand on that idea by showing that tonic and phasic REM exist on a continuum (are not dichotomous) and cycle semi-regularly.
Perspectives
Further work can focus on learning, memory, emotional processing and possibly also disease such as depression or others involving sleep disruption. Therefore the impact of this rhythm can range from healthy cognition to various health conditions of importance to patients.
Brendon Watson
University of Michigan
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The temporal structure of REM sleep shows minute-scale fluctuations across brain and body in mice and humans, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, April 2023, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2213438120.
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