Word: rem
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...from Harvard in 1959. "Nobody had ever studied the electrical activity of the individual [brain] cells during sleep. What we did was use microelectrodes in the brain to see what was going on. We put them under the bone and aimed them at the cells where we thought REM was occuring and put an object on the bone to measuere the output...
...learned that some neural cells had a preference for being 'on' [processing hormones] during awake time, and some were always 'on' during sleep. But some of the 'awake' cells turn 'on' while in REM sleep," he says...
...What we began to notice was that there was an [activation of some of the] neurons during sleep, perhaps causing REM," he says...
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...
...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...