Brain Is Still 'Connected' during Non-REM Sleep

When we sleep, our organism goes through different phases of sleep, however the brain remains interconnected during non-REM sleep, which was thought not to happen.

Two sleeping girls on the stove bench, Albert Anker, 1895. Image credit: Wikipedia (PD)

The finding by a European team of researchers has also made it possible to analyse the scientific basis of consciousness, an increasingly important field of neuroscience.

Sleep is composed of various cycles in which there are different stages: slow and fast-wave, which make up non-REM sleep and REM sleep. During the night, it is normal to experience four or five complete cycles, each lasting around ninety minutes.

Various investigations have shown that communication between different areas of the cerebral cortex is interrupted during non-REM sleep and also when a patient is under anaesthesia, due to the loss of consciousness.

Umberto Olcese, a researcher from the Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences of the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) and the rest of the research team (which involved researchers from the European CANON project and that was led by Prof. Cyriel Pennartz, who participates in the European Flagship Human Brain Project) have discovered that not all forms of communication within the cerebral cortex are lost during non-REM sleep.

Specifically, correlations are preserved between neurons located within individual regions and between some subpopulations of neurons located in different cerebral areas. (Tasnim News Agency)

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