Brain
A joint team of scientists from the United States, Italy and Switzerland recently published the results of a study of the activity of the human brain during sleep, Which are responsible for different phases of sleep and dreaming. As it turned out, not one and not two brain regions “manage” a sleep, everything is a bit more complicated. It is interesting that experts are still discussing the concept of sleep itself, trying to understand why it is needed at all.
The study in question sheds some light on this problem. For a long time it was believed that a person sees dreams only during the BDG-phase of sleep (rapid eye movement). At this time there is active brain work, similar to the work of the brain of a waking person. At the same time, a number of specialists note that people see dreams in a calm phase. “This is a real mystery when a person can see a dream in both phases of sleep or not see dreams at all,” says Francesca Siklari, one of the authors of the work on dreams.
Now this puzzle is solved by scientists. It turned out, in particular, that a person sees a person in a dream when the brain area that is responsible for recognizing people’s faces and forming visual images is activated. Dreams with spatial perception, movements and thinking about something are manifested during the activation of brain areas that respond during the waking period for, respectively, a sense of space, motor activity and thought process.
“This is proof of the fact that sleep is an activity that a person leads during sleep.” “Perhaps the sleeping brain and the waking brain are much more active than anyone could imagine, since in the one and the other case the same areas are involved.”
Scientists who conducted This study, argue that their work is of great importance. They are sure that the research can finally help to solve the riddle about what dreams are and what the nature of human consciousness is. “The importance of this article is amazing,” says Mark Blagrove, head of the sleep laboratory at the University of Swansi, commenting on the report of his colleagues published in Nature. Blagrovou himself takes an active part in the study. “This can be compared to the discovery of the BDG phase, in some ways the current study is even more important.”
The work itself is based on observations of 46 volunteers sleeping and waking. The electrical activity of the brain of all participants in the experiment was recorded during sleep. It is about removing the encephalogram, a non-invasive way of monitoring the work of the brain. A special grid with 256 electrodes is placed on the patient’s head, which allows observing the dynamics of the electric field of various parts of the human brain.
Volunteers had to wake up at different times at night (scientists woke up their wards) and talk about what they dreamed or, on the contrary, did not dream. The scale of the work done and the difficulties encountered by the participants in the experiments can be judged by the statement of Siklari: “During the experiment we woke up participants about 1000 times.” It’s about waking up all the project participants, not each of them, but still, waking up at different times of the night is not very pleasant.
If the volunteer said that he had a dream, he was asked about the details, including the length of sleep, objects and people that a person saw, possible movements and all other details that might be important.
The study of the electroencephalogram of the participants in the experiment showed that sleep is associated with a fall in the low-frequency activity of the brain, a certain section of it, called the “hot posterior cortical zone”. This site during the waking period is responsible for visual images and their integration.
Source: Simon Frazer / SPL / Getty Images
In addition, scientists carefully analyzed changes in high-frequency brain activity, discovering that changes in this Activity lead to the appearance of dreams and outside the BDG phase. After that, the specialists determined the area of the brain, which is responsible for memorizing dreams. It turned out that the same site is partly responsible for the appearance of the dreams themselves.
As a result, scientists were able to shoot the “imprint” of dreams from the sleeping brain. And this, in turn, made it possible to learn to understand if a dream person is dreaming. The accuracy of the predictions was 87%. Of course, for this, it was again necessary to awaken the sleeping volunteers, asking them if they had seen dreams at the moment of awakening.
In addition to the dreams themselves, the research aims to clarify the nature of human consciousness. By the way, in the same “Wikipedia” the following is said about sleep: “Sleep is a special state of human and animal consciousness, which includes a number of stages that regularly recur during the night (with a normal daily schedule). The appearance of these stages is due to the activity of various brain structures. ” Scientists suggest that for the appearance of dreams, that is, for a period when a person is in some kind of consciousness, it is necessary to combine a number of factors of the brain – tens, if not hundreds. A similar combination is required for the period of wakefulness.
Perhaps the results of the study will help to study some aspects of human memory, and in the future – to find out which zones can be stimulated to obtain those or other sensations.
