SRI International Research Team Identifies Rare Sleep-Activated Neurons in the Cerebral Cortex

Findings May Have Important Implications for Treatment of Sleep Disorders and for Understanding Mood and Memory MENLO PARK, CA--(Marketwire - July 21, 2008) - SRI International announced today that a research team has identified the first example of neurons that are activated in the cerebral cortex during slow wave sleep (SWS). The research, led by Dmitry Gerashchenko and Thomas Kilduff, will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in a paper titled "Identification of a Population of Sleep-Active Cerebral Cortex Neurons." The paper is available via the PNAS Web site starting July 21. The presence of slow waves in the electroencephalogram (EEG) is the distinctive "signature" of SWS and a type of activity that does not normally occur during wakefulness. For years, researchers have hypothesized... [read full story]