_Nature_ has a special online (free to access) section about sleep, at
http://www.nature.com/nature/supplements/insights/sleep/index.html
Here's the introduction:
Introduction: Sleep
John Spiro1
The fundamental truths of sleep are not difficult
to master: one sleeps when one is tired mostly
at nightand awakens the next day usually feeling rested and refreshed.
So why put together an Insight on a topic that seems so straightforward?
Although it is often true in biology that things
are more complex than they seem at first glance,
it is especially accurate for sleep. This became
apparent about 50 years ago with the discovery of
rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. This is a sleep
state marked by intense brain activity, rapid
bursts of eye movement and vivid dreaming. The
high level of brain activity during REM sleep
created a serious challenge to the prevailing
dogma that we sleep simply to provide rest
and raised a host of largely unanswered questions about the function of sleep.
Intuition also fails us when considering other
aspects of sleep namely that 'drifting off to
sleep' is a slow process and that sleep and wake
are completely separate states. On the contrary,
the act of switching from being awake to sleeping
can be extremely rapid, an observation that
carries significant public health implications.
And patients with various sleep disorders can
exist in curious states that combine aspects of
both sleep and wakefulness, indicating that the
two are not always mutually exclusive.
That so many big questions in sleep research
remain unanswered makes it a fascinating field to
follow. This Insight highlights much of that
excitement with a diverse collection of articles.
We are pleased to acknowledge the support of the
National Institutes of Health in producing this
Insight. As always, Nature carries sole
responsibility for all editorial content and peer review.
--
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
