Brain research challenges our understanding of sleep

An international study headed by researchers from Aarhus University has for the first time uncovered the large-scale brain patterns and networks which control sleep, providing knowledge which in the future may help the large proportion of people who experience problems sleeping.

We spend approximately one-third of our life asleep and our sleep has fascinated researchers for many years. Research from Center for Music in the Brain at Aarhus University and the University of Oxford has now revealed, in unprecedented detail, the patterns and networks used by the brain during sleep. The researchers have used a technique called functional MRI together with algorithms that can identify brain activity patterns.

“This provides a new and potentially revolutionary understanding of brain activity during sleep which can in turn lead to new forms of treatment of the sleep problems that affect far too many people,” explains postdoc at the Center for Music in the Brain at Aarhus University, Angus Stevner, who is behind the study.

Source: New brain research challenges our understanding of sleep