Relation To REM Sleep
REM sleep or Rapid eye movement sleep is the sleep stage when traditionally the majority of dream activity has been documented. According to the Activation-synthesis hypothesis the sensory systems (specifically the visual system activated by Ponto-Geniculo-Occipital waves or PGO waves named for the regions they travel through) as well as the vestibular system are activated during the REM stage. Feedback from the nerves controlling movement influence dream experience despite the inhibition of muscle control from the medulla which ceases motor activation through glutamatergic neurons in a process referred to as REM Atonia. Mismatch of this data might create specific dream experiences such as floating or flying. Emotional behavior and memory formation centers, most importantly the amygdala and hippocampus. are reactivated during sleep and are believe to generate the emotional content of dreams. In patients with CWS, REM sleep is not necessarily impaired but the sensory systems activation is most likely impaired from the lesion damage resulting in decreased contribution to the synthesis of dreams. In particular damage to the occipitotemporal region may alter the activation normally produced by PGO waves leading to an absence of visual system activation. Additionally damage to the memory formation pathways might be responsible for the inability of patients to recall images.
Read more about this topic: Charcot-Wilbrand Syndrome
Famous quotes containing the words relation to, relation and/or sleep:
“Any relation to the land, the habit of tilling it, or mining it, or even hunting on it, generates the feeling of patriotism. He who keeps shop on it, or he who merely uses it as a support to his desk and ledger, or to his manufactory, values it less.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is undoubtedly something religious about it: everyone believes that they are special, that they are chosen, that they have a special relation with fate. Here is the test: you turn over card after card to see in which way that is true. If you can defy the odds, you may be saved. And when you are cleaned out, the last penny gone, you are enlightened at last, free perhaps, exhilarated like an ascetic by the falling away of the material world.”
—Andrei Codrescu (b. 1947)
“And that their sleep be sound
I say this childermas
Who could not, at one time,
Have saved them from the gas.”
—Anthony Hecht (b. 1923)