The Effects Of Sleep On The Brain

There is an abundance of people who have trouble getting a good night’s sleep when they are away from home. This is because the brain is divided into two parts: the left and right hemispheres. In unfamiliar surroundings, part of the left half of the brain keeps watch while the rest of the brain and body sleeps deeply. Birds and some aquatic animals always send only half their brain to sleep at a time. This trick is called unihemispheric sleep. Although the brain rests when we sleep, it does not shut down. One stage of deep sleeping is slow-wave sleep. In this stage, a group of nerve cells in the left side of the brain showed less sleep-related activity than the same group on the right side, which suggests the left side of the brain was a