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REM sleep

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·May 15, 2020·3 min read

The dreaming brain tunes out the outside world

The brain tunes out information from the outside world, such as the sound of speech, during REM sleep. During light sleep, the brain prioritizes meaningful speech, just as it does during a wakeful state. Researchers believe the mechanism enables the brain to protect the dreaming phase, which is essential for memory consolidation.

This shows brain activity from the study

Featured Neurology Neuroscience

·March 2, 2020·3 min read

Sleeping sheep may offer clues to human brain disease

Monitoring sleep spindles in sheep may one day translate to sleep based diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases in humans.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·January 17, 2020·4 min read

Reward improves visual perceptual learning, but only after people sleep

Reward does not improve visual perception learning unless it is followed by a good night's sleep.

Featured Neurology Neuroscience

·December 26, 2019·5 min read

How to tell if a brain is awake

Study finds EEG features may not always be accurate in being able to capture the level of consciousness in patients under anesthesia.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·December 20, 2019·3 min read

Neurons responsible for rapid eye movements/REM during sleep identified

Nucleus papilion neurons play an important role in eye movement during REM sleep.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·October 11, 2019·5 min read

Rare sleep disorder common among veterans with PTSD

21% of veterans who experience PTSD or traumatic brain injury suffer from a rare sleep condition that affects less than 1% of the general population. The condition, REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD), is characterized by an impairment of sleep-related muscle paralysis, causing people to act out dreams during REM sleep. The uncontrolled actions often cause harm to the sufferer of their partners.

This shows a lot of orange and yellow lines

Featured Neuroscience

·September 19, 2019·5 min read

The brain may actively forget during dream sleep

REM sleep has previously been linked to memory formation. A new study reveals this sleep period may also be critical for us to forget certain memories, preventing information overload. Researchers identified a mechanism involving MCH neurons which causes us to forget information during sleep.

Featured Genetics Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·August 28, 2019·5 min read

After 10-year search, scientists find second ‘short sleep’ gene

Researchers have identified a second gene that contributes to natural short sleep. Using optogenetics, researchers triggered neurons in the pons that express the ADRB1 gene, rousing mice from sleep. Wakefulness-promoting neurons in the pons with a mutated version of ADRB1 were more easily activated.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·July 11, 2019·3 min read

REM sleep silences the siren of the brain

Restless REM sleep disrupts the adjustment of memory traces during sleep. This may increase negative emotions associated with mental health disorders.

This shows a light shining through trees and a man looking at it

Featured Neurology Neuroscience Psychology

·June 29, 2019·5 min read

One in 10 people have ‘near-death’ experiences

Near-death experiences (NDEs) including hallucinations, out-of-body sensations and time distortions, affect around 10% of people, a new study reports. 72% of people overall who experienced NDEs say their experience was unpleasant. Researchers found an association between NDEs and REM sleep intrusion into wakefulness, resulting in sleep paralysis and hallucinations.