Scientists find small regions of the brain can take micro-naps while the rest of the brain is awake and vice versa

Scientists have found that sleep can be detected by patterns of neuronal activity just milliseconds long, 1,000 times shorter than a second .

Small regions of the brain can momentarily "flicker" awake while rest of brain remains asleep, and vice versa from wake to sleep.

Findings reveal a new way to study and understand the basic brain wave patterns that govern consciousness.

The study looked at chunks of brain data just a millisecond long and at the highest frequencies of brain voltage fluctuations.

They found a hyperfast pattern of activity between just a few neurons was the fundamental element of sleep that the model was detecting.

In wake states, for a split second , one region would fall asleep while the rest of the brain remained asleep.

Gaining a deeper understanding of the patterns that occur at high-frequencies and the flickers between wake and sleep could help researchers better study neurodevelopmental and sleep dysregulation.

More information: David F. Parks et al , A nonoscillatory, millisecond-scale embedding of brain state provides insight into behavior, Nature Neuroscience ( 2024 ). DOI: 10.1038 /s41593-024-01715-2 Provided by University of California - Santa CruzThis story was originally published on Medical Xpress . Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest sci-tech news updates..