It turned out to be adjusting the amount of food when nerve activity during REM sleep is occurring



Human sleep is divided into '

REM sleep ', which is a light sleep where the brain is active, and ' NREM sleep ' which is a deep sleep in which the brain is resting. Human sleep is composed by periodically repeating these two types of sleep, and it has been found that REM sleep has a role of adjusting the 'meal amount when awake' among them.

REM sleep stabilizes hypothalamic representation of feeding behavior | PNAS
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/32/19590

News: REM sleep tunes eating behavior
https://www.unibe.ch/news/media_news/media_relations_e/media_releases/2020/media_releases_2020/rem_sleep_tunes_eating_behaviour/index_eng.html

REM sleep is sleep that involves rapid eye movement (REM), where the body is relaxed and at rest, while the brain is active and awake. In REM sleep, certain parts of the brain move very actively, and it is said that humans often dream during REM sleep. On the other hand, it is not known in detail what it means to activate a part of the brain during REM sleep.

The lateral hypothalamus, which is part of the hypothalamus , is also one of the areas that are activated during REM sleep. The lateral hypothalamus is involved in the regulation of appetite, feeding behavior, motivated behaviors and addiction, but we do not know what it means to be activated during REM sleep. It was

A team of professors Antoine Adamantidis and others at the University of Bern wanted to understand the effects of neural activity during REM sleep on behavior when awake. Therefore, in an experiment using mice, I decided to investigate what function activation of the lateral hypothalamus has during REM sleep.



When the research team examined the neural activity pattern in the lateral hypothalamus of REM-sleeping mice, the activity pattern was similar to that of awake mice when they were eating. To assess the importance of this pattern of neural activity, the research team experimented with genetically engineered mice to block neural activity in the lateral hypothalamus when exposed to light.

When light was applied to REM sleeping mice to block neural activity in the lateral hypothalamus, it was found that the amount of food after awakening was significantly reduced. On the other hand, even when the nerve activity in the lateral hypothalamus was blocked in the awake mouse, the feeding behavior was not changed.

Lukas Oesch, the lead author of the paper, was surprised at how powerful and persistently our intervention in neural activity in the lateral hypothalamus affected the feeding behavior of mice. comment. In mice that blocked nerve activity in the lateral hypothalamus during REM sleep, 1-day block resulted in sustained changes in feeding behavior until 4 days later. The present study suggests that neural activity in the lateral hypothalamus during REM sleep regulates feeding behavior in mammals, and that proper REM sleep is important for stable feeding behavior.



Mice whose nerve activity was blocked in this experiment were never disturbed to sleep. Therefore, the results of this study indicate that not only sleep amount is necessary for health and well-being, but 'quality of sleep' may play an important role in eating an appropriate amount of food.

``This result is relevant to our society, as Prof. Adamantidis said, ``shift work, staring at the screen late at night, or social time difference in adolescence dramatically reduces not only the amount of sleep but also the quality of sleep. ' Although not all mechanisms and factors have been clarified, the newly discovered relationship between neural activity during REM sleep and eating behavior may lead to the development of new approaches to treat eating disorders. Professor Adamantidis said.



in Science, Posted by log1h_ik