研究人员利用了小鼠丘脑的头部方向（HD）系统，这是一个神经元群体，其活动在清醒的小鼠中报告它们探索环境时的实际HD，而在睡眠的小鼠中则报告它们的虚拟HD。研究人员发现，快速眼动睡眠期间快速眼动的方向和振幅揭示了虚拟HD持续变化的方向和振幅。因此，快速眼动揭示了快速眼动睡眠中虚拟世界的目光转移，从而为了解睡眠中大脑的认知过程提供了一个窗口。
据悉，自从发现快速眼动睡眠以来，作为这一睡眠阶段特征的眼动性质一直难以捉摸。它们是揭示了在梦境虚拟环境中的目光转移，还是仅仅反映了随机的脑干活动？
附：英文原文
Title: A cognitive process occurring during sleep is revealed by rapid eye movements
Author: Yuta Senzai, Massimo Scanziani
Issue&Volume: 2022-08-26
Abstract: Since the discovery of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the nature of the eye movements that characterize this sleep phase has remained elusive. Do they reveal gaze shifts in the virtual environment of dreams or simply reflect random brainstem activity We harnessed the head direction (HD) system of the mouse thalamus, a neuronal population whose activity reports, in awake mice, their actual HD as they explore their environment and, in sleeping mice, their virtual HD. We discovered that the direction and amplitude of rapid eye movements during REM sleep reveal the direction and amplitude of the ongoing changes in virtual HD. Thus, rapid eye movements disclose gaze shifts in the virtual world of REM sleep, thereby providing a window into the cognitive processes of the sleeping brain.
DOI: abp8852
Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8852