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What happens inside our brains that makes us zone out when we're sleep deprived? Looking to determine what happens in the brain when we want to sleep but don't, a
study published in the journal
eLife, from neuroscientists at MIT, describes a newly discovered circuit in the brain's cortex.
They believe this circuit has the ability to trigger specific regions to fall asleep or become less alert while the rest of the brain stays awake. If confirmed, the discovery could help researchers invent sleep and anesthetic drugs that better mimic our natural sleeping states.
"During sleep, maybe specific brain regions have slow waves at the same time because they need to exchange information with each other, whereas other ones don't," said the study's co-author Laura Lewis, a research affiliate in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, in a
press release. "I'm inclined to think that happens because the brain begins to transition into sleep, and some local brain regions become drowsy even if you force yourself to stay awake."
The special circuit was found inside the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), a region inside the brain that controls brain waves in deep sleep, during a coma, and while a person is under anesthesia. It may also be where new memories are shared between different areas of the brain, causing a person to zone out and become drowsy while not quite falling asleep.For the study, researchers studied mice and found that when they gently stimulated the TRN in mice, slow waves appeared in the cortex. "We also found that when you induce these slow waves across the cortex, animals start to behaviorally act like they're drowsy," Lewis added. "They'll stop moving around, their muscle tone will go down."
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