Warm-blooded animal teams with greater physique temperatures have decrease quantities of fast eye motion (REM) sleep, whereas these with decrease physique temperatures have extra REM sleep, in accordance with new analysis from UCLA professor Jerome Siegel, who mentioned his examine suggests that REM sleep acts like a “thermostatically controlled brain heater.”
The examine in Lancet Neurology suggests a beforehand unobserved relationship between physique temperature and REM sleep, a interval of sleep when the mind is very lively, mentioned Siegel, who directs the Center for Sleep Research on the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA.
Birds have the best physique temperature of any warm-blooded, or homeotherm, animal group at 41 levels whereas getting the least REM sleep at 0.7 hours per day. That’s adopted by people and different placental mammals (37 levels, 2 hours of REM sleep), marsupials (35 levels, 4.4 hours of REM sleep), and monotremes (31 levels, 7.5 hours of REM sleep).
Brain temperature falls in non-REM sleep after which rises in REM sleep that sometimes follows. This sample “allows homeotherm mammals to save energy in non-REM sleep without the brain getting so cold that it is unresponsive to threat,” Siegel mentioned.
The quantity of people’ REM sleep is neither excessive nor low in comparison with different homeotherm animals, “undermining some popular views suggesting a role for REM sleep in learning or emotional regulation,” he mentioned.
Siegel’s analysis is supported by National Institutes of Health grants (HLB148574 and DA034748) and the Medical Research Service of the Department of Veterans Affairs. He declared no competing pursuits.
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