Hi there, it's Matt here, and welcome back. Once again to the podcast. Now. It probably comes as no surprise to learn that. I find sleep to be the most big guy, laying and flat-out, fantastic thing in the world. And part of that. Love, affair
is just down to the sheer number of ink and see visibly. Astonishing fact.
Facts
that sleep offers. So every now and then, I'm going to release an episode called Sleep, is bloody
remarkable and in each of
these short episodes,
I'll describe some of the extraordinary
Feats of slumbering remarkable nurse that there is in this field of sleep research, the first of those today,
Is half brain sleep. Now. I once mentioned
something about this at the start of a podcast interview a while ago
and to this day I still
receive emails about it. And I thought where better to start than double-clicking on this thing called half brain sleep.
Now, our story
starts with dolphins and whales which are in a class in the animal kingdom, that
That we call
cetaceans. And they are a splendid
example of half brain sleep.
Actually, the
technical term for this phenomenon is called unihemispheric Sleep. Meaning that one of
the two
hemispheres, which when put together, make up the full sphere that we call the brain
one, half of the brain, one side of it, one hemisphere will actually be asleep.
What's the other is awake? Now? I don't mean
just somewhat awake sort of partially drowsy and partially
awake. I mean fully completely wide awake.
While the other side is very fully,
very completely in deep non-rem Sleep, indeed, when you've watched those incredible BBC series by Sir, David Attenborough, who is
One of my absolute Idols
in terms of
being a communicator and narrator
and gosh, his voice is
just lovely Panache about it. But when you've seen those programs, particularly things like the blue planet, some of those shots of the dolphins and whales will have been taken. Whilst they are having unihemispheric
sleep. Like, I could tell, because well, I won't bore you why. But
anyway,
You see it's all about survival because one half of the brain must always stay awake to maintain life necessary movement in the Aquatic environment and that half of the brain will be bristling with frenetic
fast brainwave activity. However, the other half of the brain
will at times fall into the most beautiful deep non-rem sleep.
And you will see these big powerful rhythmic slow. Brain waves just drenching that one half of the brain, all the while the other half of the brain Wide Awake, frenetic, fast,
brain, wave
activity and that to me is particularly astonishing when you consider the fact that those two hemispheres are heavily wired together. With deep, thick Criss Crossing fibers.
Berbers and despite that heavily, intertwined interdependent Rich set of connections between the two hemispheres. They can do completely opposite
things. Now, by the way, don't feel bad for the shortchanged side of the brain that has to remain
awake because after one half of the brain has consumed, its fill
of deep non-rem
sleep, then the
Sides of the brain will switch allowing the previously awake half of the brain to. Now, enjoy a well-earned period of deep non-rem Slumber, but it turns out that the
gift of half brain sleep
is not unique to Aquatic. Mammals birds can do it
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Birds do it for
slightly, different though, equally life-preserving reasons. It allows them to keep well, quite literally an eye on
things. Now, when birds are alone,
one half of the brain must always stay awake. And what it's doing is watching out for threat detection in the environment. So it will always have one eye.
Open. But that allows the
other side of the brain to fall fast asleep, which means that the
corresponding, and it turns out as the opposite side of the
head that corresponding. I will be closed. And you can see this in birds. You can sort of
go onto YouTube and you can type bird, sleep or unihemispheric
sleep, and you'll find these videos. It's so amazing. It's remarkable things, get even
more. Preposterous when
Birds group together. So think of a flock of birds all lined up in a row on a branch here, is what happens
with the exception of the birds at the far left and the
far right sides of the branch of the flock. The rest of the group
will sleep with
both halves of their brain and therefore both of their eyes will be closed.
However, the poor girls or guys at the far left and the far right of the flock. They don't get to sleep with both halves of their
brain. Instead. The one at the far left will have
one of the hemispheres. It turns out the
right hemisphere being Wide Awake, maintaining opening of the left eye so that it gets 180 degrees of
Threat detection on the left
side. And the one on the far. Right side will have
the
opposite hemisphere
wide awake and the other
side fast asleep. So it has
its right eye. Open giving
180 degrees of
right eye threat detection, which means as a combination they get 360
degrees of full panoramic threat detection.
Ian isn't that remarkable. Now, you may
think at this point. Okay, when those Sentinels at the far left and the far right side, have taken the turn,
surely they get the chance to kind of fold into the middle and they can sleep with both
sides of their brain. And someone else has to take a turn at the far left. And the far right ends. There is no such equality. There is no sir.
Parity in the avian World,
those end Sentinels have to stay there. But here's what they do.
After sometime. After one of the sides of the brain has had its fill of sleep, those left
and right Sentinels on the outer edges of the flock. They will stand
up. They will
rotate
180 degrees.
They will sit back
down now.
They will switch sides of the sleeping brain. So now the other
side gets to sleep and the other half has to be wide
awake. I know sing it with me. People sleep is bloody remarkable. Perhaps. The only thing,
more remarkable would be if we humans could sleep in half brain measure. Well, we can, or
at,
Very mild version
of unihemispheric sleep
one that normally occurs. However, for similar reasons. Now, if you can /, the electrical depth of each half each side
of the brain of a human being. When
they are sleeping at
home, in their familiar
environment, the depth of Deep, Sleep of deep electrical, brain wave activity is about the same, but if you bring that
A person into a strange location and
unfamiliar location such as, for example, a sleep
laboratory or even if you take them into a hotel, then one half of the brain will not go down into as deeper sleep as the other half of the brain as if it's standing on guard with just a tad more vigilance due to the potentially less safe.
Text that your brain has registered while you were awake and it's perhaps one of the reasons why so many of us feel as though we sleep. So poorly on the first night in a
hotel room.
Now. The last point I want to make is that you've heard me be probably very specific about the stage of sleep when all of this uni,
hemispheric half brain sleep is happening, which is during
deep non-rem sleep and that
That is very deliberate. We have never seen unihemispheric sleep across any species when it comes to rapid eye movement, sleep or dream sleep. It's only during non-rem sleep. That we see the expression, the ability to have one half of the brain asleep and the other half of the brain are weak. And we don't know why this is, we don't know why it is that when you go into dream sleep.
Any other species goes into REM sleep. Why the two halves of the brain cannot separate and sleep separately from
each other. With the other half being
awake. It seems to be a unique property. Only able only gifted to this thing called Deep,
non-rem Sleep. All of which is to say, as you can see, I
think sleep. Truly is
bloody remarkable.
There will be
more such remarkable nurse at another word. Remarkable nurse episodes in the future. If you enjoy this type of stuff, if you enjoy these types of episodes or if you don't do let me know on Instagram and Twitter, that's where you can find me. Give me some feedback on these things. Maybe you don't find them as remarkable as me and you just think, can you just go back to the normal topics? This stuff just doesn't interest me. And with that, I will wish you a
Bloody remarkable night of sleep. Bye for now.
