On Thu, 16 Mar 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> A student in my Santa Monica Class who does child care for a healthy young
> infant said that she's never seen the child in REM and wondered if it's
> possible that the child didn't have it. I said I thought that it was not
> possible for a normally developing or health person not to have REM sleep but
> thought I should run it by the more knowledgeable list denizens anyway.
> Wouldn't there be something terribly wrong with the baby if it didn't have
> REM?
>
> Also, I am guessing that people who have certain kinds of brain damage and
> are comatose or "vegetative" probably don't have REM. Am I correct in my
> surmise? Please advise. Thanks so much.
My understanding is that all normal, healthy people, of all ages, have
REM, and infants have more of it (50% of sleep vs 20% for adults). I'm
not sure that assessing REM through watching for eye movements under
the closed lids in sleep (which is the method I presume your student
used) is reliable, although it can be an indicator. A definitive
statement about an absence of REM would require polygraphic EEG, eye
movement, and muscle tension monitoring. If the infant does not show
REM, that would certainly be unusual. I don't know of a single such
case.
On the other hand, there is one published account of an individual
without REM sleep (Lavie et al, 1984). The subject was an Israeli with
a shapnel injury in the brainstem. Despite near-total absence of REM
sleep, he showed no psychological impairment, and was able to complete
law school and practice law (on second thought, that may be evidence
of impairment, when one considers the differences between a lawyer and
a catfish, and a lawyer and a hen laying eggs). I use the case to
point out that we still don't have a clue what REM is good for,
because at least one person can apparently function normally without
it.
The case has an interesting follow-up four years later. It seems the
subject still has periodic bouts of penile erection during sleep, a
phenomenon of REM sleep, but no REM (Lavie, 1990). I've corresponded
with Lavie and asked him whether his patient nevertheless dreams. All
he's said is that on one occasion he woke from a brief period of REM
but didn't report a dream. It's disappointing that Lavie hasn't
provided more information.
At the meeting of the American Assoc for the Advancement of Science in
1999, Mark Solms reported on 26 patients who had brainstem lesions
that prevented REM sleep. Solms said that only one of these patients
stopped dreaming. This looks like more evidence against the equation
that REM sleep = dreaming that we've discussed on TIPS. By
coincidence, I recently dug up Solms' e-mail address and asked him for
a reprint (if it's since been published, which I doubt) or preprint of
this work. He just replied today that it's on its way, whatever it is.
-Stephen
References
Lavie, P. et al (1984). Localized pontine lesion: nearly total
absence of REM sleep. Neurology, 34, 118--
Lavie, P. (1990). Penile erections in a patient with nearly
total absence of REM: a follow-up study. Sleep, 13, 276--
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Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661
Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lennoxville, QC
J1M 1Z7
Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
Check out TIPS listserv for teachers of psychology at:
http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips/
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