Although the dream is a time to turn off and replenish our energy, our brains remain surprisingly active when we are at rest. In fact, more continues behind our closed eyelids than we thought previously, according to a team of researchers who recently analyzed eye movements during sleep.
In study Published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications, Switzerland researchers analyzed the students of the sleeping participants. The study reveals that our students constantly change size while we are unconscious, indicating different levels of brain activation—The brain response to stimuli. With more research, doctors could one day use the student’s activity to diagnose conditions such as sleep disorders.
The student’s dynamics “reflects the state of excitation, or the level of brain activation in regions that are responsible for the regulation of sleep-vigilia,” said Caroline Lustenberger, neuroscientific from Eth Zürich and co-author of the study, in a university statement. “These observations contradict the previous assumption that, essentially, the level of excitation during sleep is low.”
The Locus Coeruleus, a part of the brain that regulates activation levels, is found in the brainstem and is notoriously difficult to study while individuals are asleep, according to researchers. Since it is known that the size of the pupil reflects brain activity, Lustenberger and its colleagues assumed that they could also be used to track brain activation during sleep.
The team claims to be the first to observe the eye movements during sleep for several hours at the same time, and I know what you are thinking: as? The image highlighted in this article is not a file photo, it shows how they really did it. The researchers simply hit an eye of each open participant, moistened it with ocular ointment and then sealed behind a transparent bandage.
“Our main concern was that the test subjects could not sleep with their eyes open. But in a dark room, most people forget that their eyes are still open and can sleep, ”explained Manuel Carro Domínguez, biomedical engineer of Eth Zürich and main author of the study, who invented the technique.
In general, the participant’s pupil movement showed that activation levels constantly change during sleep. According to researchers, the finding confirms a biological characteristic in humans that previous studies He had documented in rodents.
The team also pointed out a link between the dynamics of the pupil during sleep and the specific brain activity patterns, including brain waves involved with sleep stability and memory consolidation. In addition, they discovered that the intensity of the reaction of the brain to the sound depends on the level of its activation, as indicated by the students of the participants. However, the study did not prove whether Locus Coeruleus directly influences the dynamics of the pupil.
“We are simply observing pupila changes that are related to the level of brain activation and cardiac activity,” Lustenberger explained. The team aims to investigate this potential dynamic, as well as how activation levels influence sleep, a follow -up study. If they find a strong causal relationship, the pupila movement could one day be used to detect disorders such as insomnia and post -traumatic stress disorder, or even the recovery of a comatose patient.
We have not yet discovered if the eyes are Windows to the Soul, but as the team’s research shows, they are certainly windows for the brain!