A putative flip–flop switch for control of REM sleep

Jun Lu (), David Sherman, Marshall Devor and Clifford B. Saper ()
Additional contact information
Jun Lu: Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
David Sherman: Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Marshall Devor: Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Clifford B. Saper: Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Nature, 2006, vol. 441, issue 7093, 589-594

Abstract: Abstract Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep consists of a dreaming state in which there is activation of the cortical and hippocampal electroencephalogram (EEG), rapid eye movements, and loss of muscle tone. Although REM sleep was discovered more than 50 years ago, the neuronal circuits responsible for switching between REM and non-REM (NREM) sleep remain poorly understood. Here we propose a brainstem flip–flop switch, consisting of mutually inhibitory REM-off and REM-on areas in the mesopontine tegmentum. Each side contains GABA (γ-aminobutyric acid)-ergic neurons that heavily innervate the other. The REM-on area also contains two populations of glutamatergic neurons. One set projects to the basal forebrain and regulates EEG components of REM sleep, whereas the other projects to the medulla and spinal cord and regulates atonia during REM sleep. The mutually inhibitory interactions of the REM-on and REM-off areas may form a flip–flop switch that sharpens state transitions and makes them vulnerable to sudden, unwanted transitions—for example, in narcolepsy.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04767 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:441:y:2006:i:7093:d:10.1038_nature04767

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature04767

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().