Neuro-biology of Sleep
Neuro-biology of Sleep By Dr.Manvir Bhatia & Ananya Sleep is an important and essential part of our lives. It rejuvenates us from all the fatigue. However, sleep is a very complex phenomenon. It mainly consists of alternating phases of the rapid eye movement (REM) and the non-eye eye (NREM) phase. The NREM is the first phase of sleep and consists of three phases followed by REM sleep. The first stage of NREM sleep lasts only for the initial ten minutes when we start falling asleep. Muscle activity and eye movement start slowing down. The second and third stages are those of deep sleep. The brain waves become slower, and during stage 3, there is the presence of delta waves. This is followed by REM sleep, during which brain activity is the same as that in the awakened state. It is characterized by heavy breathing, an increased heart rate, rapid eye movement, and muscle atonia. Read on…