BACKGROUND Anesthesiologists who work extended hours exhibit acute and chronic sleep deprivation. The newest bilateral Bispectral Index (BIS)-Vista monitor offers new advantages over earlier models, which include a new algorithm (version 1.4). One possible useful application for BIS monitoring of physiological sleep would be in critically ill patients who almost uniformly suffer from sleep disr...

Most antidepressants suppress rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is thought to be important to brain function, yet the resulting REM sleep restriction is well tolerated. This study investigated the impact of antidepressants with different mechanisms of action, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and tricyclic antidepressants (TCA), on the regulation of REM sleep in rats. ...

Studies using drugs that increase or decrease GABAergic transmission suggest that GABA in the pontine reticular formation (PRF) promotes wakefulness and inhibits rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Cholinergic transmission in the PRF promotes REM sleep, and levels of endogenous acetylcholine (ACh) in the PRF are significantly greater during REM sleep than during wakefulness or non-REM (NREM) sleep....

The noradrenergic (NA-ergic) rapid eye movement (REM)-OFF neurons in locus coeruleus (LC) and cholinergic REM-ON neurons in laterodorsal/pedunculopontine tegmentum show a reciprocal firing pattern. The REM-ON neurons fire during REM sleep whereas REM-OFF neurons stop firing during REM sleep. The cessation of firing of REM-OFF neurons is a pre-requisite for the generation of REM sleep and non-ce...

Short-term sleep deprivation soon after training may impair memory consolidation. Also, a particular sleep stage or its components increase after learning some tasks, such as negative and positive reinforcement tasks, avoidance tasks, and spatial learning tasks, and so forth. It suggests that discrete memory types may require specific sleep stage or its components for their optimal processing. ...