Sleepers Selectively Suppress Informative Inputs during Rapid Eye Movements.
Current biology : CB June 22, 2020 Matthieu Koroma, Célia Lacaux, Thomas Andrillon et al. 34 citations
During REM sleep, the brain flexibly amplifies or suppresses external sounds depending on eye movements. Using EEG to reconstruct speech from brain responses in a multi-talker environment, meaningful speech was amplified over meaningless speech overall. However, at the precise moments of rapid eye movements, meaningful speech was selectively suppressed. This shows that eye movements during REM sleep act as a gate, selectively blocking informative external stimuli while allowing them at other times, resolving a long-standing debate about whether the sleeping brain processes or ignores the outside world.