Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sample.eng.ohio-state.edu!purdue!haven.umd.edu!uflorida!shark!tomh From: tomh.bbs@shark.cs.fau.edu (Tom Holroyd) Newsgroups: sci.bio Subject: Re: Echidnas & REM sleep Message-ID: Date: 30 Apr 91 17:28:49 GMT References: Sender: bbs@cs.fau.edu (Waffle BBS) Organization: Florida Atlantic University Lines: 38 vangeldr@cmgm.stanford.edu (Russ Van Gelder) writes: >A couple of functional questions about REM sleep: > >1. What is the phenotype of continuous pharmacologic suppression of >REM sleep, as is seen in patients on long-term antidepressants. I >believe that, aside from the antidepressant effect, in humans, there >is no real phenotype. I don't understand the question. Phenotype? That has to do with development, right? I don't know about the EEG of patients on anti-depressants. >2. What is the phenotype associated with lesions of the pedunculo- >pontine tegmentum? Barbara Jones has performed these lesions in >cats, resulting in a complete or almost complete loss of REM sleep. >The animals seem fine. Deprivation of REM sleep causes death. A dead cat does not seem fine to me. >One can theorize based on comparative phylogeny, but the functional >experiments of knockout and overexpression (i.e. with carbachol >injection into the pontine midbrain) haven't suggested any roles for >REM sleep in the adult brain. Such experiments are only now being >attempted in the developing brain (i.e. recent experiments by Gerry >Vogel). There is no such thing as the pontine midbrain. The midbrain and the pons are two different things. Again, deprivation of REM sleep causes death. This suggests that it does do *something*. Tom Holroyd & Bill Fortin Center for Complex Systems Florida Atlantic University tomh@bambi.ccs.fau.edu