REM sleep articles within Nature Communications

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pontine waves are a hallmark of REM sleep. Here, the authors identify a distinct population of medullary neurons that constitute a hub in the REM sleep circuitry promoting REM sleep with an enhanced density of pontine waves.

    • Amanda L. Schott
    • , Justin Baik
    •  & Franz Weber

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep is associated with increased cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow in mammals, but this link has not been studied in birds. Here, the authors show that in pigeons, REM sleep is associated with activation of visual brain regions and a drop in CSF flow, suggesting that REM sleep functions occur at the expense of waste clearance during NREM sleep.

    • Gianina Ungurean
    • , Mehdi Behroozi
    •  & Niels C. Rattenborg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Orexin signaling is provided by diffusely distributed fibers and involved in different brain circuits that orchestrate sleep and wakefulness states. Here, the authors show that a proportion of orexin neurons project to the sublaterodorsal tegmental nucleus and exhibit rapid eye movement (REM) sleep-related actions.

    • Hui Feng
    • , Si-Yi Wen
    •  & Jun Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is a sleep phase characterised by random eye movements for which the underlying motor commands are yet to be revealed. The authors describe that a cluster of medulla oblongata neurons in the Nucleus papiliocontributes to the control of eye movements during REM sleep.

    • C. Gutierrez Herrera
    • , F. Girard
    •  & M. R. Celio

  • Article
    | Open Access

    When tracking a moving object, our eyes make smooth pursuit movements; however, tracking an imaginary object produces jerky saccadic eye movements. Here, the authors show that during lucid dreams, the eyes smoothly follow dreamed objects. In this respect, dream imagery is more similar to perception than imagination.

    • Stephen LaBerge
    • , Benjamin Baird
    •  & Philip G. Zimbardo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Loss of muscle tone is a distinguishing feature of paradoxical or REM sleep (PS) and is disrupted in REM sleep behavior disorder. Here the authors report that GABA/glycine inhibitory neurons in the ventromedial medulla are essential for producing PS muscle atonia without affecting PS quantity.

    • Sara Valencia Garcia
    • , Frédéric Brischoux
    •  & Patrice Fort

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Neuronal learning activity is reactivated during sleep but the dynamics of this reactivation in humans are still poorly understood. Here the authors show that memory processing occurs during all stages of sleep in humans but that reprocessing of memory content in REM and non-REM sleep has different effects on later memory performance.

    • M. Schönauer
    • , S. Alizadeh
    •  & S. Gais

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dreaming occurs in REM sleep, yet the neural mechanisms involved in generating it are not understood. Here Cox and colleagues show that glutamatergic neurons in the dorsal pons are activated most during transition to REM sleep while GABAergic neurons are more active during waking state.

    • Julia Cox
    • , Lucas Pinto
    •  & Yang Dan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Since the discovery of rapid eye movements (REMs), a critical question endures as to whether they represent time points at which visual-like processing is updated. Here the authors demonstrate that cortical activity during sleep REMs shares many properties with that observed during saccades and vision.

    • Thomas Andrillon
    • , Yuval Nir
    •  & Itzhak Fried

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