Word: modelling
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Hobson says his dual neuron dream model allows him and his research staff to study "dreaming as a state as opposed to dreaming as a story." Hobson's concept allowed the researchers to study the content of dreams not as Sigmund Freud would have psychoanalyzed them, but as physiological processes...
Hobson and McCarley, who are both associated with the Department of Psychiatry at the Medical School, also tried to add to their dream model by analyzing the chemicals processed in the brain during REM sleep and then studying differences in the way various hormones direct sleeping versus waking activities...
...researchers found that there were drastic chemical differences between a sleeping and a waking brain. When a person is not asleep, one of the two groups of neurons in Hobson's model, called aminergic neurons, processes the hormones norepinephrine and seretonin, which can control bodily functions. On the other hand, if someone is engaged in REM sleep, the other set of neurons, referred to as cholinergic, become receptive to the hormone acetylcholine for muscle control...
Hobson recently performed several other experiments to elucidate other details of his model, hoping to find a way to induce REM sleep in animals. "We wanted to test the 'on' [cholinergic] cells to see if giving them acetylcholine stimulated REM sleep," says Hobson. "This gave us experimental control of REM. We could induce dreaming in animals, and instead of having to wait 30 minutes before REM onset, we could induce it in two or four...
...Hobson and McCarley came out with a model which is a very good way of looking at things. It has wide popularity. They are a highly thought-of neurophysiological team." says John H. Herman, associate professor of psychiatry at Southwestern Medical School in Dallas...