Researchers led by Giulio Tononi of the University of Wisconsin-Madison measured the electrical activity in the brains of 11 rats, which they kept awake past their bedtimes by continuously introducing new objects into their cages. They found that the activity in some brain areas in the rats showed brief descents into “slow wave” sleep patterns. That?s the type of sleep we experience for 80% of the night, the kind that mostly doesn?t involve dreaming.
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