The Friedrich Schiller University researchers in Jena, Germany, led by mathematician Karin Schwab noted that after about seven months growing in the womb, a human fetus spends most of its time asleep. Its brain cycles between rapid eye movement sleep and the quiet resting state of non-REM sleep.
But whether the brains of younger, immature fetuses cycle with sleep or are simply inactive has been undetermined.
Schwab and her colleagues said their discovery, made by using a mathematical system, provides a tool to study how the brain develops and to identify vulnerable periods in brain development when damage could lead to disease later in life.
The research appears in a special issue of the journal Chaos, focusing on non-linear dynamics in cognitive and neural systems.
Copyright 2009 by United Press International.
Post new comment