Understanding Sleep: A Paradigm Shift
Journal Title: International Journal of Medical and Health Sciences - Year 2012, Vol 1, Issue 4
Abstract
Sleep has fascinated since time immorial people across the spectrum of society and is continued even to the present day. It was considered as a passive phenomenon which rejuvenates the whole organism. However, a great change in understanding of sleep started after discovery of REM sleep and is it is well recognized that it is an active process. Thalamocortical interaction brings about various stages of NREM sleep, where, the sleep deepens as the thalamocortical network progressively hyperpolarizes. This brings about total functional deaffrentiation of cortex to the stimuli and builds an environment where in cortico-cortical interaction takes place, which forms the basis for spectrum of plasticity changes to take place during sleep. However, the emerging evidences have shown that sleep can be in a circumscribed region of the brain. The activity of a cortical column will drive it into sleep mode. This use dependent local sleep at various cortical columns also has a greater functional significance like that of whole organism sleep. However, the sleep is understood, either as a phenomenon of whole organism or a local use dependent, both primarily subserve role of energy conservation at their level. Understanding of sleep from cellular to organism level is discussed in this review.
Authors and Affiliations
Ravindra P. N
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