The biological process characterized by reversible unconsciousness, unresponsiveness to external stimuli and motor passivity.
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1answer
71 views
How does one maintain balance sleepwalking?
Anectodal. Feel free to shoot it down.
Walking is an acquired skill; As far as I'm concerned exhaustion causes disorientation. Even after waking up it sometimes takes a second or so to get balanced.
...
4
votes
0answers
26 views
How are our senses dimmed during sleep?
Our senses are not as sensitive during sleep compared to wake. There is an arousal threshold during sleep that only when it is overcome will it wake a person up. My question is how is this arousal ...
3
votes
0answers
38 views
What causes adenosine build up in the brain when awake?
Adenosine is an important hormone in sleep regulation. It is postulated that when a person is awake, there is a build up of adenosine in the brain, which inhibits the neurons in the brain, and ...
3
votes
0answers
49 views
What controls the feeling of discomfort/comfort before and after sleep?
I'm interested in which biological systems or hormones are involved in the following phenomenon:
Before sleep it may be difficult to find a comfortable position, and muscular aches and pains are more ...
2
votes
0answers
465 views
Do humans sneeze or cough in their sleep?
As far as I know, I've never seen anyone sneeze or cough while they're sleeping. Google wasn't very helpful either; a lot of contradicting claims.
So the questions remains: do humans sneeze or cough ...
2
votes
0answers
35 views
Physiological or molecular difference before and after sleep?
I know that the details of the process of sleep aren't entirely known, but have always wondered why I feel rested after sleep.
Biologically, what differences can be directly observed in the human ...
1
vote
0answers
19 views
What is the mechanism by which Melatonin increases dream vividness and intensity in humans?
I'm looking at the wikipedia article on Melatonin and noticed that it mentions vivid dreaming caused by melatonin. I have the "Melatonin and the Biological clock" pamphlet referenced in the article, ...
1
vote
0answers
30 views
Does Dorsal Raphe Nuclei firing pattern change in response to voluntary breathing?
I'm reading this paper, which discusses how Serotonin may be involved in motor functions of mammals: 5-HT and motor control: a hypothesis .
The paper includes the following diagram of the Dorsal ...
1
vote
0answers
19 views
Can we make any judgements about sleep or readiness to sleep from a heart rate metric and/or pulse oxymetry?
I'm looking at inexpensive and un-intrusive ways to quantify the state of human body/mind . One of these is Actigraphy, which is a study of human motion over time. This can be done with an iPhone ...
1
vote
0answers
96 views
What is the timing of information assimilation within a human brain?
A little background: I'm an avid dreamer and have great dream recall, sometimes up to 5-7 per night.
In my experience, I can sometimes trace some elements of the dream to an event that occured ...
0
votes
0answers
25 views
Are there different metabolic pathways leading to “sleep”?
First of all, I apologize if this question does not belong on biology.stackexchange.
I've long been interested in sleep and recently postulated this question in light of reading about ...
0
votes
0answers
91 views
Can the sleep/wake cycle be influenced by non-visible spectrum electro-magnetic radiation?
I've been reading a few papers on Melanopsin and Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN), and see that the sleep/wake transition is ...
