It could be due to the lack of oxygen or disruption of a person’s overall sleep cycle. Some studies suggest those with sleep apnea are more likely to experience nightmares, although the reason for this is still unclear. When a person’s sleep cycles are continually interrupted, they may rarely enter the REM sleep stage. Often, during an episode of sleep apnea, a person wakes up completely, or their sleep cycle is interrupted. ![]() It occurs when an individual’s airway becomes blocked by the tongue, improperly relaxed throat muscles, or the soft palate. Obstructive sleep apnea is the most commonly-occurring form of sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is characterized by interruptions in a person’s breathing during the night. The Relationship Between Sleep Apnea and Dreams Most people move through four to six sleep cycles per night. All stages combined make up one sleep cycle. The first three non-REM sleep stages are stage 1 light sleep, stage 2 light sleep, and stage 3 deep sleep. Most people experience their first REM sleep cycle about 60 to 90 minutes after they fall asleep. Unlike other sleep stages, when brain waves slow down, the brain is highly active during REM sleep. Beyond dreaming, REM sleep is crucial for brain development, emotional processing, and brain functions.ĭuring REM sleep, the eyes rapidly move back and forth, the heart rate increases, and breathing becomes irregular. REM sleep is closely associated with dreaming and memory consolidation. Most dreams occur during the rapid eye movement or REM stage of sleep. It can affect dreams, turning sweet slumber into a nightmare. Now, studies indicate sleep apnea impacts more than just the quality of your sleep. Sleep apnea significantly affects a person’s ability to get enough good-quality sleep. When we can’t achieve this state of sleep nightly, it has a detrimental impact on our well-being. One thing we do know about dreams is that the state of sleep known as REM sleep, when you experience the most vivid dreams, is vital to physical and mental health. The research, published in the journal Science, could help with finding new pathways for studying and treating sleep and memory disorders.What are dreams? The mental images and movies that play out in our heads each night are still relatively mysterious. “Since dreams are thought to primarily occur during REM sleep, the sleep stage when the MCH cells turn on, activation of these cells may prevent the content of a dream from being stored in the hippocampus – consequently, the dream is quickly forgotten.” “These results suggest that MCH neurons help the brain actively forget new, possibly, unimportant information,” said Dr. ![]() The mice also performed better on memory tests when the MCH neurons were disabled during REM. ![]() When the MCH cells were switched on as the mice retained information, it had a negative effect on memory, but when the cells were turned off, memory improved. ![]() Once this link was discovered, the researchers switched MCH neurons in mice on and off with different genetic tools and conducted memory tests.įor one test, the mice had to distinguish between familiar and new objects. After discovering this new circuit, we thought these cells might help the brain store memories,” said Dr. “From previous studies done in other labs, we already knew that MCH cells were active during REM sleep. The researchers found that hypothalamic MCH cells sent messages to the hippocampus, the memory center of the brain. It’s been suggested that REM plays an important role in storing new memories and eliminating excess information which could be why so few dreams are remembered the next day.įrancis Crick, one of the discoverers of the DNA double helix, suggested that the brain actively forgets information during REM, but exactly how this happens was unknown until now.Ī team of researchers from the Center for Neuroscience at SRI International in California, Nagoya University in Japan, and Hokkaido University in Japan focused on cells that produce melanin-concentrating hormones (MCH) which are known to influence sleep and appetite.
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