Sleep Creeps Up: No Top-Down Control for Sleep and Wakefulness
Friday, November 7, 2008 - 14:35
in Psychology & Sociology
Feeling sleepy? That's because parts of your brain are actually asleep, according to a new theoretical paper by sleep scientists at Washington State University. Contrary to conventional wisdom, they say, there's no control center in your brain that dictates when it's time for you to drift off to dreamland. Instead, sleep creeps up on you as independent groups of brain cells become fatigued and switch into a sleep state even while you are still (mostly) awake. Eventually, a threshold number of groups switch and you doze off.