In a dream, a person has brain activity. The nature of the activity of brain structures during sleep. Slowing down brain activity before bed

Our brain does not completely stop working for a second during sleep. While the rest of the body is resting, brain activity continues to function. While we sleep, energy is restored, our memory is cleared of unnecessary information, even the body is cleansed of toxins. In each phase, brain activity is different, all phases pass in an hour and a half, so we repeat them several times a night.

Rest at different periods of the night is very different in terms of brain activity and the work of the whole organism. These periods vary in time, but the entire cycle takes one and a half hours.

Moreover, the distribution of sleep phases changes closer to the morning:

In an hour and a half at night, the body completely goes through this cycle, starting from falling asleep and ending with a fast phase. During the night, the brain may have several such cycles for sleep. Doctors advise that in order to get enough sleep, the number of hours should be a multiple of this cycle. Awakening in the fast phase is considered the most complete for the body. Such a dream can restore strength without any antidepressants.

Few people imagine what happens to our body and brain at night. We have dreams, this is another confirmation that the brain does not turn off during sleep, but continues to work. During a night's rest, our body is completely rebooted and cleared of unimportant information.

We receive a huge amount of information every day. The work of the brain during sleep involves the processing of all this information, its rethinking and distribution.

There are several important functions that our nervous system performs while we sleep:

Very often people try to work or study something at night. Actually, this is not the best idea. In a dream, you will remember better and process the knowledge that you received during the night.

This will allow you to make the most of it. Constant lack of sleep leads to the death of neurons in the brain.

Our brain is essentially a huge computer with a lot of information and a complex operating system. And at night, it reloads information and distributes it into folders. Our brain cannot turn off, but cleansing the brain in a dream is quite real.

What person does not know about the importance of healthy sleep. It's not just muscle relaxation and detachment from reality.

With a normal rest at night, we get advantages over those who do not get enough sleep:

These are just a few of the benefits of healthy sleep. A good rest at night is a direct road to longevity.

Best of all, the benefits of a night's rest are reflected in the old proverb: "The morning is wiser than the evening." Our brain, equipped with millions of neurons, continues to work during rest. But it is thanks to this work that we feel different in the morning.

While we rest and view bright colorful dreams, our main computer in our head is working. It sorts everything we learned during the day, helps answer the day's questions, and helps us remember the information we need.

The main task that the brain solves during sleep is the task of maintaining the body's performance.

The author of the visceral theory of sleep is Ivan Nikolaevich Pigarev, specialist in the field of physiology of vision and physiology of sleep, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Chief Researcher of the Laboratory of Information Transmission in Sensory Systems of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

We bring to your attention a recording of a conversation with Ivan Nikolaevich.

What is sleep for?

-Ivan Nikolaevich, how was your theory born?

A few years ago, a rather strange situation developed in the field of sleep research. On the one hand, the most obvious and simplest theory of sleep, according to which sleep is required in order to give rest to the brain, disappeared quite a long time ago. This theory existed exactly until they learned how to record the activity of brain neurons. As soon as this became possible, it immediately became clear that during sleep, the neurons in the cerebral cortex work even more actively than in the waking state.T theory was discarded.

The question immediately arose: "Then what do these neurons do during sleep?" After all, during sleep, we interrupt the input of all information from the outside world. For example, signals from the retina do not reach the areas of the cortex responsible for visual perception. There is even an active block that is responsible for blocking these signals. The same system exists on all sensory inputs. This is an indisputable fact, which is confirmed by the data of the devices. It turns out that the cerebral cortex during sleep should be "silent". But, as I said, this does not happen. We observe strong wave activity and a certain rhythm. The reasons for this activity were not entirely clear.

On the other hand, when they wanted to reveal the purpose of sleep, they did very simple experiments - they deprived animals of sleep. The result of these experiments was always the same: after several days of sleep deprivation, the animal died. Moreover, it died not due to "mental disorders", but because of diseases of internal organs incompatible with life (usually stomach ulcers, intestinal ulcers and other visceral pathologies). Of course, before the start of the experiment, there were no such diseases in animals. The same is observed in humans.

For example, suddenly developing stomach ulcers are often experienced by students who refuse normal sleep while preparing for exams. But back to animals. Experiments have shown that the only organ that never suffers from sleep deprivation is the brain itself.

This is an interesting picture we had at the beginning of our research.

We proposed a hypothesis that has been fully confirmed over the past 20 years. What does it consist of?

We assumed that the brain (primarily the cerebral cortex) is not a highly specialized processor. Previously, it was believed that, for example, the visual cortex was created specifically for processing visual information, and could not do anything else. This is her only function. Speaking in terms of computer technology, the brain was considered as a set of specialized computers, each of which performs only one function. As I said, we put forward the idea that the neurons of the cerebral cortex are much more versatile and can process completely different information. About the same as the processor of a modern computer, it is capable of producing various calculations that are independent of a specific subject area.

What then does the cerebral cortex do during sleep? According to the visceral theory, during this period the brain is busy processing not signals coming from external sensory channels (vision, smell, touch, hearing), but signals coming from internal organs. The main task that the brain solves during sleep is the task of maintaining the body's performance.

How the brain works during sleep

- What kind of tasks can enter the brain from the internal organs? In the amateur's opinion, everything is so well arranged there that it should work completely automatically.

The design of our body does not include the ability to receive and be aware of sensations coming directly from the internal organs. We are not able to directly feel the surface of the stomach, the surface of the intestine, or any part of the kidney. We don't have systems for that. Please note that, say, the skin is arranged differently. If you have a wound on the skin, then you absolutely know exactly where the damage happened (even if you can’t see it).

We are simply not capable of judging with our consciousness about the processes that occur in our organs and, accordingly, about the tasks that the cerebral cortex solves in this context.

- But we do feel pain in certain organs. Is not it so?

Imagine that a certain person tells you that his stomach hurts. What does this mean? In fact, he is not able to determine the specific organ that is suffering from him at the moment. Why? Not at all because I'm not familiar with anatomy. It's just that the accuracy of his sensations is limited to the phrase "stomach hurts." He experiences the subjective feeling of pain itself, and not painful sensations from a specific internal organ.

Today, even doctors know that, as a rule, we feel pain in one place, and the real pathology is in a completely different area.

- So, the brain has a certain "processor capacity." During wakefulness, these powers are mainly involved in processing signals from external sensory channels, and during sleep they switch to processing data from internal organs. It's like that?

Yes. In all our internal organs and tissues of the body there are so-called interoreceptors (chemoreceptors, thermoreceptors, baroreceptors, etc.), which are capable of processing the signals received by them and transmitting them to the brain. For example, on the walls of the gastrointestinal tract there are a huge number of interoreceptors that send information to the brain about the chemical composition of substances inside and on the surface of the intestine, temperature, mechanical movements, and much more.

Today we cannot accurately describe the content of this information. But we are already able to measure its volume. Studies show that it is commensurate with the flow of data coming from the eyes. And that's just the data stream from the gastrointestinal tract!

- As far as I remember, it used to be that the autonomic nervous system (ANS) was processing all this information.

This is true, but only for the waking state. The ANS is organized (for the most part) segmentally. Each of its fragments receives information from a specific organ or part of it. And the size of the ANS does not correspond to the huge flow of information that comes from interoreceptors located in all organs of the body, including, in particular, the brain itself. Accordingly, the ANS is not and cannot be a coordinating system capable of ensuring the performance of the organism as a whole. This task can be solved jointly by the cerebral cortex and a number of subcortical formations. For example, the hippocampus, amygdala, hypothalamus and a number of other structures.

What then is drowsiness?

Drowsiness and fatigue are signals that a certain number of “unresolved problems” have accumulated in our body (or rather, in internal organs), and their processing requires the connection of the “central processor” capacities. In other words, we need to go into sleep mode and allow the brain to deal with the accumulated requests.

If this is not done in a timely manner, then the very pathologies that I spoke about at the very beginning of our conversation may begin to appear. Remember the poor little animals that died from diseases of the internal organs? Here is an explanation of the cause of their illnesses.

It is curious that if the animal receives some strange pathological stimulation (for example, a slight electric shock on the surface of the stomach), then it immediately falls asleep. Why? So that the brain begins to deal with the cause that caused incomprehensible messages that went through the visceral nerves to the brain in response to the inflicted impact.

- Now it is clear why, when a person is sick, he is recommended to sleep more. So we give the brain more time to restore the disturbed functions of the body?

Yes. Our experiments fully confirm this. If you want to be healthy, you need to sleep properly. Then there is a chance to live at least up to 120-150 years.

About acupuncture

- My Teacher said that according to the Taoist picture of the world, our emotions and even many of our actions are determined by the state of internal organs. For example, that the “I want” effort comes from the kidneys, and the “must” effort comes from the liver. Your theory allows you to understand how such patterns can be explained.

Yes, many interesting observations have been made in the East about the functioning of the organism. Some of these empirical findings are now being confirmed. For example, the visceral theory makes it possible to make an assumption about the mechanisms of acupuncture points and reflexology. I'll try to explain.

When we experimentally demonstrated the responses of the cerebral cortex to stimulation of internal organs, the following question arose: "How does the entire volume of visceral information come to the cortex?" The anatomy of the pathways from the sensory channels was well known by that time. There were also studies regarding the vagus nerve. But we clearly understood that one vagus nerve is not enough to transmit the entire array of information from the internal organs. This nerve is too small. We started looking for other explanations.

It is known that nerve fibers go from various parts of the skin to the spine. Dermatologists have long drawn up a detailed diagram showing the correspondence between various parts of the body surface and the roots of the spinal cord. Later it turned out that nerve fibers from the internal organs come to the spinal cord through these same roots. Moreover, all these fibers terminate on the same neurons of the spinal cord. They mix there and then transmit information to the brain. It turns out that the same neuron can be excited both by signals coming from the surface of the body and by signals coming from the internal organs. Only, according to the visceral theory, it never happens at the same time. The sleep state acts as a switch. We have already talked about this.

Now back to acupuncture. If a person has a pathology in some internal organs, then the body does everything to speed up the transfer of information from them to the spinal cord and brain. It lowers the sensitivity thresholds of the respective neurons in order to improve the conduction of signals. How else can you encourage the body to lower these thresholds? We know that the same neurons receive signals from the skin. This means that if we begin to irritate the corresponding areas of the skin, then we will get the reaction of neurons we need. That is what acupuncture does.

By the way, do you remember I talked about the fact that with any strange pathological effect, the animal falls asleep? Exactly the same effect is observed in humans when needles are inserted during a reflexology session. The person begins to doze off or falls asleep. Now you yourself can explain what it is connected with. The brain begins to deal with the problem (for this it needs a sleep mode) and, first of all, to request information from those organs that correspond to the areas of the skin "pricked" with needles.

On Consciousness, Subconsciousness and Memory

- What you said fully explains one more thing that is characteristic of Eastern practices of self-improvement. It is known that they do a lot through meditation, i.e. through a state close enough to sleep. It turns out that meditation can be used to purposefully adjust the work of internal organs?

Yes. Although I doubt very much that one can begin to actively interfere in the activities of the organs. But to open up the possibility of conducting signals from the organs to the brain, as well as to give the brain extra time to "put things in order" through meditation, is probably quite possible.

Here it is necessary to clarify what I mean by "putting things in order". We are talking about eliminating any discrepancies between the genetically specified parameters of the functioning of the organism and its actual state.

Let's talk a little about consciousness. What it is? Where is consciousness located?

From the visceral theory it follows that consciousness is definitely not connected with the cerebral cortex. After all, consciousness is active in wakefulness and turns off in sleep. And cortical neurons are equally active both in wakefulness and in sleep. But neurons in the structures of the so-called basal ganglia behave in this way. They receive signals from all areas of the cortex and are activated in wakefulness, while during sleep, the transmission of signals from the cortex to these structures is blocked and the neurons become silent.

The cortex is responsible for the work of the subconscious. More precisely, for the processing of that colossal array of information that we are not even aware of.

- But can we confidently assert that consciousness "lives" in the brain?

The mentioned part of the brain is quite enough to ensure the work of such a stunted component of a person as consciousness. The subconscious activity of an earthworm from an informational point of view is much more complicated than what our consciousness does with you.

But I can't say the same about memory. Memory is something else...

- Please explain.

It would be logical to assume that the memory should be stored in our body or at least in the brain. The amazing thing happens when you start to explore the brain from this point of view.

The properties of memory are found literally in every cell of it. But it looks more like the memory that is in all our information devices - printers, scanners, etc. On the other hand, some analogue of the main storage of information such as a hard disk or solid-state memory blocks responsible for storing the main array of vital and information has not yet been found.

It is assumed that memory can be dispersed throughout the cortex or even throughout the entire volume of the brain. There are arguments in favor of the fact that memory can be recorded on the same DNA molecules that carry genetic information. But here the question of fast mechanisms for extracting this information remains open ... So for now there is no answer to the question of where the memory is stored.

It often happened that hints to physiologists were given by successes in the development of technical systems, and, first of all, successes in the field of information technology. If I were doing memory research, I would now pay attention to cloud data storage. Well, if people have thought of the fact that it is irrational to carry large storages of information with them, but it is better to organize easy access to these storages from anywhere, then did the human designer not understand the advantages of such a system?

-Do you think that memory is stored outside of a person?

Yes, I now quite admit it. But where exactly and how exactly it is stored, I, of course, do not know. Apparently, we need to wait for the discovery of a new material substance that would allow us to store such information and provide organisms with a quick connection with this repository. I think that physicists will soon discover such a substance or such a field. Now in the study of the universe many amazing things are being discovered.

About polyphasic sleep and dreams

What do you think about polyphasic sleep practices? For readers, let me remind you that polyphasic (or polyphasic) is such a sleep mode in which sleep is divided into a large number of periods distributed during the day. A person, as it were, sleeps "many times a little bit."

This practice could be ideal. Many animals work on a similar model. Watch. They sleep in fractions, not in one big period.

Fighting natural drowsiness is extremely harmful. After all, drowsiness means that there are malfunctions in the body and “putting things in order” is required.

- What are dreams?

I think that dreams are a form of pathology. Normally (that is, when all neurology is working correctly), they should not be. I can even assume that a person who never sees dreams will live 20-30 years longer.

- What is the most surprising thing about the phenomenon of sleep for you?

In a dream, everything is amazing!published

interviewed by Sergey Sukhov

The results of work on the study of the activity of the human brain during sleep in order to determine the areas that are responsible for different phases of sleep and dreaming. As it turned out, not one or two parts of the brain “manage” sleep, everything is a little more complicated. Interestingly, experts are still discussing the very concept of sleep, trying to understand why it is needed at all.

The study in question sheds some light on this issue. For a long time, it was believed that a person only dreams during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. At this time, there is an active work of the brain, similar to the work of the brain of a waking person. At the same time, a number of experts note that people see dreams in the calm phase as well. “It's a real mystery when a person can dream in both phases of sleep or not dream at all,” says Francesca Siclari, 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 faces in a dream when the part of the brain responsible for recognizing people's faces and forming visual images is activated. Dreams with spatial perception, movement and thinking about something appear during the activation of brain regions that are responsible during wakefulness for, respectively, the sensation of space, motor activity and thought process.

"This is proof of the fact that sleep is an activity that a person has while sleeping." “Perhaps the sleeping brain and the waking brain are much more similar in terms of activity than anyone could have imagined, since the same areas are involved in both cases.”

The scientists who conducted this study say their work is significant. They are confident that the study can finally help unravel the mystery of what dreams are and what is the nature of human consciousness. "The importance of this article is striking," says Mark Blagrove, head of the sleep laboratory at the University of Swansea, commenting on his colleagues' report published in Nature. Blagrove himself takes an active part in the study. "This can be compared to the discovery of the REM phase, in some ways the current research is even more important."

The work itself is based on observations of sleep and wakefulness of 46 volunteers. The electrical activity of the brain of all participants in the experiment was recorded during sleep. We are talking about taking an encephalogram, a non-invasive way to monitor the functioning of the brain. A special grid with 256 electrodes is put on the patient's head, which makes it possible to observe 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, conversely, did not dream about. The scope of the work done and the difficulties faced by the participants in the experiments can be judged by the statement of Siklari: “During the experiment, we woke the participants about 1000 times.” We are talking about the awakenings of all project participants, and not each of them, but still, waking up at different times at night is not very pleasant.

If the volunteer said he had a dream, he was asked about details, including the duration of the dream, the objects and people the person saw, possible movements, and any other details that might be important.

The study of the electroencephalogram of the participants in the experiment showed that sleep is associated with a drop in the low-frequency activity of the brain, a certain part of it, called the "hot posterior cortical zone." This area during wakefulness is responsible for visual images and their integration.

The fact that sleep is divided into several stages, one of which is the stage of REM sleep, scientists guessed 55 years ago. The credit for this discovery belongs to University of Chicago student Eugene Azerinski and his supervisor Nathaniel Kleitman.

It turned out that the person seems to be sleeping, but his eyeballs are moving vigorously, and he himself sees vivid, memorable dreams. Moreover, being awake with your eyes closed takes up a fifth of the total sleep time, and at this time the brain cells are very active: they are busy processing information, as shown by today's studies.

So, as we now know, out of every eight hours we really sleep only a little over six hours. In the REM phase, our brain does not receive new information from the senses and does not give commands to the muscles: it processes the information received and (sic!) Creates behavior programs for the future, puts in order and strengthens our memory, which allows us to use it more efficiently the next morning . The fact that the morning is wiser than the evening, people noticed in time immemorial. But why? For many decades, researchers believed that sleep strengthens memory, as it serves as a passive protection against the accumulation of new impressions. We forget because new information pushes out previously received memories. And when we sleep, new information does not arrive, and the brain has the opportunity to decompose the information received during the day on the shelves, where it can be fixed. It turned out, however, that sleep strengthens memory very actively, and its fast phase participates in this process.

What do rodents see in their dreams?

Scientists do not yet know exactly how our memory functions. There is speculation that yesterday's events are resurfacing due to the activation of connections between hundreds, thousands, or perhaps even millions of neurons. This is how active zones are formed, exciting which again and again, we instruct the brain to consolidate the information received or return something long forgotten. That is why they say that repetition is the mother of learning. Thus, a group of cells that are excited together form a memory, for example, about what was passed the day before in a geography lesson or about where the keys to the apartment are.

Modern devices allow you to observe exactly which areas of the brain are working at the moment, which was used by neuroscientists Matthew Wilson and Bruce McNaughton from the University of Arizona. They implanted implants into the brains of rats to record the activity of neurons, and let the animals run from feeder to feeder along a closed path. When the rats walked different sections of the route, different cells of the hippocampus, the brain structure responsible for spatial memory, were activated in them. The activity of different "place cells" correlated so closely with the rat's physical location that the researchers could follow the animals' movement along the route simply by observing which cells were currently active. When the rats ran and fell asleep, the experimenters continued to record the activity of the "place cells" and found that the cells fired in the same order, as if the rats were walking the route in their sleep.

Sleep learning: myth or reality?

But the brain in sleep does not just conduct unconscious memory training, it can selectively strengthen those parts of it that most need it. In 2005, Matthew Walker of Harvard Medical School asked volunteers to type nonsensical sequences such as 4-1-3-2-4 on the keyboard. This is something akin to playing the piano from a sheet, from previously unknown notes. The fact that after a good sleep, the movements of the fingers became faster and more coordinated, in general, is obvious. However, careful research has shown that well-sleep people not only typed faster, but were especially successful at typing those sequences that were the most difficult for them at first. The brain spent the whole night driving their memory through these sequences, and as a result, by the time they woke up, they were best remembered. Moreover, Walker's research showed that those participants in his experiment who had a good night's sleep, while performing the task, significantly less involved the areas of their brain responsible for conscious efforts, but more actively those areas of the brain that provided faster and more accurate keystrokes.
br>The conclusion is simple to the point of banality: those who want to study well and work effectively must sleep well. In 2004, Ulrich Wagner and his collaborators from the University of Lübeck (Germany) set up a very peculiar experiment. They first trained volunteers to solve a certain type of math problem in a long and boring way and gave them 100 problems to practice on. Then the test subjects were sent away for 12 hours, promising another 200 tasks for the future. The researchers did not tell their students that there was an easier way to solve these problems, but many of the volunteers reached this solution on their own by the second session. And then the difference between sleep and wakefulness was discovered. Among those who slept between two sessions, 59% found a simple solution method, and among those who were awake, only 23%. This led the researchers to the conclusion that our brain is able to solve a problem, even if it does not previously know about other possibilities for solving it, and in a dream it copes with this better than in reality. And he does this mainly in the stage of REM sleep. The longer a person sleeps, the longer this phase becomes. Therefore, for some aspects of memory consolidation, it is necessary to sleep more than six hours. But after a long sleep, the brain works much more efficiently, and this should be remembered by creative individuals who prolong their day due to sleepless nights.

What to do at night

The question is why people have evolved in such a way that some cognitive functions are carried out in them only in a dream? Why can't the brain process information during the daytime? Perhaps the fact is that sleep arose as a result of evolution long before higher knowledge. In a world where light and darkness alternate, it is more efficient to hunt during the day and sleep at night (or vice versa). It so happened that circadian rhythms play a decisive role in our life. And the brain had to adapt to these circumstances and intelligently use the time of sleep to process the information received during the wakefulness period. But this is only one of the hypotheses.

Another is that perhaps our sleep cognition uses the same brain resources that, when awake, are busy receiving information, that is, processing signals from the senses. Therefore, for a qualitative strengthening of memory, it is necessary that the body stops receiving these signals and frees up resources for storing information. Naturally, it is most convenient to turn off external channels at a time when the body is sleeping, and sleep is inherent in all warm-blooded animals.

However, there may be more hypotheses. Scientists still do not understand how the brain processes previously received information? What chemicals or molecules are involved in memory mechanisms? What allows the brain to remember certain facts and forget others? And sleep research is one way to answer these questions.

It will not be superfluous to recall the great ideas seen in a dream. So, Mendeleev dreamed of his Periodic Table of Chemical Elements, and Friedrich August Kekula saw the structure of the benzene molecule (it appeared in the form of a coiled snake beating its tail).

Mikhail Potapov: 

The human brain during sleep does not stop its function for a second. While the whole body is resting, its activity continues. While a person is sleeping, energy is restored, memory is cleared of unnecessary information and the body is cleared of toxins. To understand whether the brain rests during sleep, what processes happen to it, an electroencephalogram was created that reveals accurate information about the work of the body. A hot topic today is which part of the brain is responsible for sleep. The information presented is incomplete, although it is able to explain certain important points that occur at night in a dream.

The work of the brain in cycles

Previously, it was believed that when a person sleeps, brain activity gradually decreases, and then completely stops its work. With the emergence of the EEG, this theory was challenged. As it turned out, the brain does not sleep at all during sleep, but does a lot of work to prepare the body for the coming day.

During the rest period, the work of the body manifests itself in different ways, it all depends on the cycle in which sleep takes place.

Slow phase of dreams

When a person falls asleep, the vibrations of neurons in the gray matter slowly fade, there is a maximum relaxation of all muscles, the heart beat becomes slow, pressure and temperature decrease.

The part of the brain responsible for deepening into dreams is the hypothalamus. It contains nerve cells that inhibit the production of neurotransmitters, which are chemical conductors that are responsible for castling shocks between neurons.

The work of the body in the fast phase

During the period of fast-wave dreaming, the excitation of the thalamus occurs due to cholinergic receptors, the message in which occurs with the help of acetylcholine. These cells are located in the middle nucleus of the organ and the upper part of the pons. Their rapid activity leads to the appearance of a burst of swaying neurons. The gray matter in sleep during this cycle performs almost the same activity as during wakefulness.

Monoamine transmitters sent from the upper lobe of the trunk to the cerebral cortex do not feel such energy. As a result, the supply of material from the thalamus to the cortex is carried out, although the person perceives it as dreams.

What part of the brain is responsible for dreams

Such a phenomenon as night rest has long been of interest to many scientists. Previously, such famous philosophers as Hippocrates and Aristotle also made attempts in the knowledge of dreams. In the 20th century, Russian scientists Bekhterev and Pavlov conducted research on this topic. Scientists were also interested in the area of ​​gray matter, which was responsible for dreams.

Today, in the central part of the human nervous system, the zone responsible for wakefulness and rest is defined. This area is called the reticular formation of the leading nucleus of the brain stem, which is a web of many nerve cells, covered by fibers extending from the sensory bases of the organ.

In this place there are 3 types of nerve cells that cause different biological active elements. One of them is serotonin. According to scientists, it brings about changes in the body that cause dreams.

Numerous developments have shown that when the production of serotonin stops, chronic insomnia occurs. So, the fact was revealed that the reticular formation, which is the zone of the center, is able to answer both for night rest and waking up. Moreover, the mechanism that causes lifting may prevail over the structure responsible for inducing sleep.

Research by Balkin and Brown

Dreaming seems to refer to an interesting phenomenon that happens to a person during a night's rest. The goal of the research conducted by Balkin and Brown is to identify the area in the brain where the greatest functionality occurs during the dreaming period.

To determine what is happening with the brain and the intensity of its blood flow, scientists used positron emission tomography. During wakefulness, the prefrontal cortex of the organ works, and when a person sleeps, the limbic system is active, which controls feelings, emotions, memory.

Brown and Balkin's work also shows that the main visual cortex is not active during sleep. In this case, the extrastrial cortex of the central section acts, which is the visual area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe organ, capable of processing information about complex objects (faces).

Research from the University of Whiskey

Scientists in the study identified the area of ​​gray matter responsible for dreams. 46 volunteers participated in the experiment. During the rest period, the subjects noted electrical brain waves in the laboratory. Electroencephalography was used to isolate areas of nerve cells associated with visions, regardless of the cycle.

People were awakened from time to time and asked what they saw when they slept. The information provided was compared with the electrical work of the organ.

Subsequently, according to EEG data, it was revealed that during sleep there is a decrease in low-frequency work in a separate rear part of the organ cortex, which is associated with the appearance of visions. And when there was an increase in activity, nothing was dreamed of.

When the subjects told that they were dreaming, neural zones were activated all the time and vice versa they were inactivated when they reported about the lack of sleep. And free from the usual predominances of rest, were present in the rear hot zone, which consists of:

• from the occipital cortex;
• precuneus;
• posterior cingulate gyrus.

By observing how this site works, scientists predicted that the participant in the experiment would talk about visions when he woke up. Based on this, scientists concluded that these areas of the body are responsible for regulating human sleep.

How to turn off your brain before bed

Many are familiar with such a problem that as soon as you should go to bed, thoughts begin to burst into your head. If you do not calm the brain, and endure such a state every evening, then your well-being will be disturbed every day.

There are methods to turn off the brain before bed.

1. Understand the need for rest at night. Insufficient sleep can cause many diseases, anxiety.
2. Follow a regular schedule. Fall asleep and get up at the same time.
3. Turning off your head before going to bed will help a daily ritual, for example, by reading a book, but not in bed.
4. Make notes of unresolved issues and worries throughout the day.
5. Use the bed only for dreaming.
6. Create an acceptable environment. Silence, lack of light will help to relax the body.
7. Do mental exercises that will help turn off the mind.

If insomnia has not ceased to bother, you need to consult a doctor.

How to charge the brain after sleep for work

Most have never thought about why a certain group of people are hyperactive in the morning, while others spend a lot of time to get into a natural working channel. The difference is that the former start stimulating the gray matter early.

How to wake up the brain in the morning and feel cheerful, there are many tricks.

• take a cool shower;
• start the morning with an energetic tune;
• reading over morning coffee will help make the mind work;
• meditate;
• drink vitamins;
• do physical exercises;
• have a hearty breakfast;
• set an alarm to wake up the brain.

The human brain is a unique structure. Previously, it was assumed that during the period of dreams it is turned off completely. In the course of the research, it was revealed that this hypothesis has no basis, and, therefore, is excluded from the facts. When a person sleeps, there is an activation of neural connections responsible for the functionality of the body as a whole.