Consciousness and cognition
September 1, 2020
Jarrod Gott, Michael Rak, Leonore Bovy et al.
23 citations
Lucid dreaming, where people experience waking-like self-reflection during dreams, is linked to more wake-like brain activity in the prefrontal cortex. This multi-centre study, combining four investigations, examined whether fragmented sleep increases the chance of lucid dreaming. Results showed that self-reported awakenings, polyphasic sleep schedules, and physiologically measured wake-REM sleep transitions were associated with lucid dreaming. However, neither self-assessed sleep quality nor physiologically measured numbers of awakenings showed an association. The findings suggest a nuanced relationship, where certain types of sleep fragmentation, but not all, may relate to lucid dreaming, and the authors discuss possible causal mechanisms.
Neuroscience of consciousness
January 1, 2025
João Patriota, Giulia Moreni, Jorge F Mejias et al.
During the sleep-wake cycle, consciousness changes, and this is thought to relate to how brain areas integrate. Recent work found that people can have conscious experiences during NREM sleep, which is usually considered unconscious. This study tested whether functional connectivity between neurons varies within brain states in a way that matches fluctuating consciousness. Researchers examined directed functional connectivity between neurons across the wake-sleep cycle in rats, over seconds. They observed that NREM sleep contains epochs where inter-areal connectivity patterns resemble those during wakefulness and REM sleep, and vice versa. Thus, circuit-level connectivity patterns are not fixed by brain state but may reflect other factors, such as changes in consciousness level within as well as between brain states.
bioRxiv Preprint Server
November 14, 2025
João Patriota, Giulia Moreni, Jorge Mejias et al.
preprint
Consciousness is thought to fluctuate with the integration of brain areas across the wake-sleep cycle, but recent evidence suggests consciousness may not be uniformly present or absent within a given brain state, as conscious reports can occur during Non-REM sleep. This study tested whether functional connectivity between neurons varies within brain states in a way that reflects changing levels of consciousness. In rats, directed functional connectivity between neurons was examined across the wake-sleep cycle at a scale of a few seconds. The analysis aimed to determine whether Non-REM sleep contains epochs with inter-areal integration comparable to wakefulness and REM sleep, and vice versa. The findings could reveal circuit-level connectivity patterns consistent with alternating levels of consciousness both between and within brain states.