Washington: A new study has found that your brain is tasked with listening for sound tasks even when you are in deep sleep. The findings of the research, conducted by scientists from UCLA and Tel Aviv University, were published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. A unique study of brain activity in the cerebral cortex of epileptic patients found that there was a stronger response to sound during sleep that largely mirrored the brain’s response during wakefulness. However, there was a significant difference from wakefulness, namely in the levels of alpha-beta waves.
The attenuation of these waves is characteristic of the awake state and indicates neural feedback from higher brain centers that help to perceive sound and anticipate what may happen next. This was a major factor in sleep deprivation.
“When a person is in deep sleep, the neuronal orchestra is never shut off from the environment,” said Dr. Itzak Fried, a study co-author and director of UCLA’s Epilepsy Surgery Program.
“The neurons are like the musicians playing Mozart, each one with great fidelity and volume. Only the conductor, who oversees the performance and leads the expectations, is missing.”
Fried, who in previous research has extensively studied brain activity during wakefulness and sleep, said the findings could help us understand the extent to which information is being processed by people in a state of unconsciousness, such as that comatose patients or under anesthesia.
When the brain consolidates recent information, they may also point to ways, possibly by auditory stimulation, to enhance memory during sleep.
Researchers had an unusually close look at the activity of single brain cells in patients with severe epilepsy via electrodes that were implanted in their brains to track where seizures were occurring thanks to potentially curative surgery. .
Patients at UCLA and Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center who agreed to participate in the study were set up with bedside speakers that played words and music while the patients were awake and listening, as well as He was taking deep sleep too. Well, one of the musical choices in the study was Mozart’s “Ein Klein Nachmusik” or “A Little Night Music”.
Over 7 years, the team collected data from more than 700 neurons during different stages of wakefulness and sleep, allowing them to compare neuronal activity and brain waves. Brain cells in the primary auditory cortex responded most vigorously during sleep, but there was a decline in “top-down” neural response from higher brain regions that mediate attention and expectation.
“Maybe that’s why we’re still not conscious, although we’re still processing sensory information from the outside world. So you’re not completely closed off from the environment in that sense,” Fried said.