Later, when Austin and his team analyzed the recorded snapshots, they noticed differences in the brain during active sleep versus restful sleep. During active sleep, when babies are more fussy, brain regions in the left and right hemispheres appear to fire in the same way at the same time. This suggests that new long connections are forming throughout the brain, Austin said. During restful sleep, more short connections appear to form within brain regions.
It’s unclear why this happened, but Austin has a theory. Active sleep, he argues, is more important for preparing the brain to build conscious experience more broadly—for example, recognizing another person as a person rather than a series of spots and patches of color and texture. Different brain regions need to work together to make this happen.
The shorter connections made during restful sleep may fine-tune how various brain regions work, says Austin: “In active sleep, you’re building a picture, whereas in restful sleep you’re building a picture. [you’re] Refining things. “
The more we learn about how the healthy newborn brain works, the better we will be able to help babies who are born prematurely or suffer brain damage early in life. Austin also hopes to learn more about the effects of each sleep stage on the brain. For example, once we better understand what the brain is doing, we can work out when it is safest to wake a baby to feed.
Austin envisions some kind of traffic light system that could be placed near a sleeping baby. A green light may indicate that the baby is in an intermediate sleep state and can be awakened. On the other hand, a red light may indicate that it is best to keep the baby asleep because the brain is in the middle of some important process.
I have tried to do something similar with my own children. When it’s safe to wake mom, a cloud-shaped toy in their room turns green and plays a song. Cloud is ignored. Unfortunately, once their brains are ready to clear, they don’t seem to mind if I’m not.
Read more from Tech Review’s archives:
“The kid was screaming like crazy. Mom was nervous. The whole thing was nervous.” Rachel Fritts explores how tricky it is to study a baby’s brain in an fMRI scanner this from last year.
From the 20th week of gestation, the fetus can begin to hear muffled sounds. These poor-quality sounds may be critical for early brain development, Write Anne Trafton.
