Rapid eye movement sleep is initiated by basolateral amygdala dopamine signaling in mice

Is paradoxical sleep setting up innate and acquired complex sensorimotor and adaptive behaviours?: A proposed function based on literature review

We summarize here the progress in identifying the neuronal network as well as the function of paradoxical sleep and the gaps of knowledge that should be filled in priority. The core system generating paradoxical sleep localized in the brainstem is now well identified, and the next step is to clarify the role of the forebrain in particular that of the hypothalamus including the melanin-concentrating hormone neurons and of the basolateral amygdala. We discuss these two options, and also the discovery that cortical activation during paradoxical sleep is restricted to a few limbic cortices activated by the lateral supramammillary nucleus and the claustrum. Such activation nicely supports the findings recently obtained showing that neuronal reactivation occurs during paradoxical sleep in these structures, and induces both memory consolidation of important memory and forgetting of less relevant ones. The question that still remains to be answered is whether paradoxical sleep is playing more crucial roles in processing emotional and procedural than other types of memories. One attractive hypothesis is that paradoxical sleep is responsible for erasing negative emotional memories, and that this function is not properly functioning in depressed patients. On the other hand, the presence of a muscle atonia during paradoxical sleep is in favour of a role in procedural memory as new types of motor behaviours can be tried without harm during the state. In a way, it also fits with the proposed role of paradoxical sleep in setting up the sensorimotor system during development.

When the Locus Coeruleus Speaks Up in Sleep: Recent Insights, Emerging Perspectives

For decades, numerous seminal studies have built our understanding of the locus coeruleus (LC), the vertebrate brain’s principal noradrenergic system. Containing a numerically small but broadly efferent cell population, the LC provides brain-wide noradrenergic modulation that optimizes network function in the context of attentive and flexible interaction with the sensory environment. This review turns attention to the LC’s roles during sleep. We show that these roles go beyond down-scaled versions of the ones in wakefulness. Novel dynamic assessments of noradrenaline signaling and LC activity uncover a rich diversity of activity patterns that establish the LC as an integral portion of sleep regulation and function. The LC could be involved in beneficial functions for the sleeping brain, and even minute alterations in its functionality may prove quintessential in sleep disorders.

Addicted to dreaming

How does dopamine, the brain's pleasure signal, regulate the dream stage of sleep?