The Discovery Of Rem Sleep: Unraveling The Mystery

In the 1950s, Eugene Aserinsky, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, discovered rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Aserinsky's discovery was the result of a series of experiments in which he studied the eye movements of sleeping infants and adults. He found that during sleep, the eyes exhibited vigorous movement, which he termed REM Periods. This discovery challenged the prevailing view that sleep was a passive state and sparked an explosion of interest in sleep research and the treatment of sleep disorders. Aserinsky's work laid the foundation for modern sleep medicine and changed the way we understand sleep and dreaming.

The first continuous all-night recording of ocular motility in sleep was conducted on the author's eight-year-old son

The first continuous all-night recording of ocular motility in sleep was conducted by Eugene Aserinsky on his eight-year-old son, Armond. Aserinsky was a graduate student in physiology at the University of Chicago, and his future was riding on this research. He had a high school degree, a pregnant wife, and a young son to support. He was determined to succeed.

Aserinsky had been working late, night after night, in the physiology lab on the second floor of Abbott Hall at the University of Chicago. He had been tinkering with an ancient brain-wave machine, an Offner Dynograph, which he had dragged from the basement. He wanted to see if the machine could be used to study sleep.

One December evening in 1951, Aserinsky's son, Armond, came to the lab and sat patiently on an Army cot while his father scrubbed his scalp and the skin around his eyes with acetone, taped electrodes to his head, and plugged the leads into a switchbox over the bed. From the adjacent room, Aserinsky calibrated the machine, telling Armond to look left, right, up, and down. The ink pens jumped in concert with the boy's eyes. And then it was lights out.

Armond fell asleep, and Aserinsky tried to stay awake. Sustained by pretzels and coffee, Aserinsky sat at a desk under the hellish red eyes of a gargoyle-shaped lamp. He noticed that the pens tracking his son's eye movements—as well as the pens registering brain activity—were swinging back and forth, suggesting Armond was alert and looking around. Aserinsky went in to check on his son, expecting to find him wide awake. But Armond's eyes were closed; the boy was fast asleep.

What was going on? Was there a problem with the machine? Aserinsky didn't know what to think, standing in bewildered excitement, on the threshold of a great discovery.

Aserinsky soon realized that he had stumbled upon something new and unknown. He decided to call the phenomena "rapid eye movement" or "REM". He went on to find that heart rates increased by an average of 10% and respiration went up by 20% during REM. He also found that sleepers could have multiple periods of REM during the night.

Aserinsky's discovery of REM sleep was groundbreaking. It changed the way scientists viewed sleep and dreaming, and it launched a new branch of medicine, leading to the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders that afflict tens of millions of people.

The discovery of REM sleep is considered a watershed moment in science

The discovery of REM sleep is largely attributed to Eugene Aserinsky, a graduate student in physiology at the University of Chicago, and his advisor, Nathaniel Kleitman, a Russian émigré who was considered the "father of modern sleep research". In 1951, Aserinsky conducted his first sleep study on his 8-year-old son, Armond, using an ancient brain-wave machine called the Offner Dynograph. He noticed that the pens tracking Armond's eye movements and brain activity suggested that he was alert and looking around, even though he was fast asleep. Intrigued by this initial finding, Aserinsky went on to study sleeping infants and adults, making all-night continuous measurements of brain-wave activity and eye movements during sleep.

Aserinsky's research revealed that sleepers experienced multiple periods of REM sleep throughout the night, with the first starting about 90 minutes after sleep begins. He found that heart rates and respiration increased during REM sleep, and that sleepers could be roused from this state to recall dreams. In 1953, Aserinsky and Kleitman published a paper in the journal *Science* describing their findings, coining the term "rapid eye movement periods". This paper is considered the beginning of modern sleep research, as it demonstrated that sleep included at least two major kinds of sleep and active brain processes.

Following Aserinsky and Kleitman's groundbreaking discovery, other researchers built on their work and made further contributions to the field of sleep medicine. William Dement, a medical student at the time who worked with Aserinsky and Kleitman, went on to establish the world's first sleep clinic at Stanford University. Michel Jouvet, a neurophysiologist at the University Claude Bernard in Lyon, France, mapped the brain structures that generate REM sleep and produce muscle paralysis during this state. Together, these pioneers of sleep research opened up a new branch of medicine, leading to the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders that afflict tens of millions of people worldwide.

The discovery of REM sleep was made by Eugene Aserinsky, Nathaniel Kleitman, William Dement and Michel Jouvet

The discovery of REM sleep was made by a team comprising Eugene Aserinsky, Nathaniel Kleitman, William Dement, and Michel Jouvet.

In 1950, Eugene Aserinsky began graduate work at the University of Chicago, selecting sleep researcher Nathaniel Kleitman as his mentor. Aserinsky was tasked with observing infants' blinking rates during sleep. After months of relatively unsuccessful work, he decided to investigate adult sleep, using the corneo-retinal potential to record eye movements. This led to the remarkable discovery of REM sleep.

Aserinsky and Kleitman published their findings in 1953, describing 3 to 4 nightly periods of saccadic eye movements, increased respiratory rate, and body movements associated with periods of dreaming in 20 adults. They followed up with a more detailed description in 1955, reporting similar cycles in sleeping infants. Aserinsky and Kleitman are generally considered the founders of modern sleep research.

William Dement, a fellow student of Aserinsky's at the University of Chicago, also played a significant role in the discovery of REM sleep. He was the first to intensively study the connection between rapid eye movement and dreaming. Dement had a particular interest in psychiatry, which at the time considered dreams to be important. In 1957, Dement published a thesis on "Rapid eye movements during sleep in schizophrenics and non-schizophrenics and their relation to dream recall", supervised by Kleitman.

Michel Jouvet, a French neuroscientist and medical researcher, also contributed to the understanding of REM sleep. In 1959, he categorised sleep into two distinct states: telencephalic (slow wave) sleep and rhombencephalic sleep (paradoxical sleep, or REM sleep). Jouvet also conducted experiments on cats, demonstrating that the generation of REM sleep depends on an intact pontine tegmentum and that REM atonia is due to an inhibition of motor centres in the medulla oblongata.

REM sleep is also known as 'active sleep' or 'paradoxical sleep'

REM sleep, or rapid eye movement sleep, is characterised by rapid movements of the eyes as well as increased brain activity. During REM sleep, the brain's activity is similar to that observed during waking hours, which often leads to vivid dreams. The body, however, remains mostly still, with temporary paralysis in many muscles. This is thought to prevent sleepers from acting out their dreams.

The term "paradoxical sleep" was first used by French researcher Michel Jouvet to describe the seemingly contradictory nature of REM sleep, during which the brain is highly active while the body remains inactive. This is in contrast to non-REM sleep, during which brain activity slows down. The active nature of the brain during REM sleep has also led to it being called "active sleep".

The discovery of REM sleep is credited to Nathaniel Kleitman and Eugene Aserinsky, who, in 1953, reported the association between rapid eye movements during sleep and dreaming. Kleitman, a pioneer in sleep research, is often referred to as the "father of sleep research". He established the world's first sleep laboratory at the University of Chicago in 1925 and published the first major textbook on sleep in 1939.

REM sleep is associated with dreaming

In the 1950s, Eugene Aserinsky and his advisor, Nathaniel Kleitman, discovered rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and its correlation with dreaming. Aserinsky, a graduate student in physiology at the University of Chicago, had been studying infants' blinking rates during sleep, but found it difficult to differentiate eyelid movements from eyeball movements. He then decided to study all eye movements in sleeping infants and adults, using an Offner Dynograph machine to record eye movements during sleep.

Aserinsky noticed that the pens tracking eye movements and brain activity were swinging back and forth, suggesting that the subject was alert and looking around. However, when he checked on his 8-year-old son, Armond, who was sleeping in the lab, he found that his eyes were closed and he was fast asleep. This led Aserinsky to discover that there were periods of rapid eye movement during sleep, which he termed "REM Periods".

Aserinsky and Kleitman published their findings in 1953, describing 3 to 4 nightly periods of saccadic eye movements, increased respiratory rate, and body movements associated with periods of dreaming in 20 adults. They also found similar cycles in sleeping infants. This discovery marked the beginning of modern sleep research, as it demonstrated that sleep included at least two major kinds of sleep and active brain processes.

REM sleep is now recognized as a distinct behavioural state, characterized by rapid eye movements, increased respiratory rate, and body movements. It is also associated with dreaming, as confirmed by waking people during REM periods and finding that they recalled vivid visual imagery. This discovery shifted the focus of scientists from the dreaming person to the dreaming brain, inspiring new models and theories about the nature and function of dreams.

While the discovery of REM sleep is primarily credited to Aserinsky and Kleitman, William Dement, a medical student at Chicago who assisted Aserinsky with his overnight sleep studies, and Michel Jouvet, a neurophysiologist who mapped the brain structures that generate REM sleep, also made significant contributions to the field.

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