Increased intra-thalamic and thalamo-cortical functional connections during human REM sleep: Insights from a two-night EEG-fMRI study.

ABSTRACT: Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, characterized by vivid dreaming and muscle atonia, raises the fascinating question about how such immersive experiences occur without external sensory input. To investigate this, we analyzed data from a whole-night 8-hour EEG-fMRI concurrent recording study with 12 non-sleep-deprived participants. Our findings confirmed that during REM sleep, all thalamic subnetworks simultaneously connect with multiple sensory networks, including visual, motor, auditory, and action-planning networks, which was not observed during wake. Additionally, intra-thalamic connection was significantly higher during REM sleep compared to wake in all 11 participants with high-quality fMRI data during REM, and compared to Non-REM stages in nine out of 11 participants. We validated thes

SUBMITTER: Yang FN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12635483 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature