[DrmDoc]

DrmDoc, on 14 January 2012 - 01:05 AM, said:

...the neural components of sleep that generate atonia likely developed or evolved in what would become our neurostructure before that structure was capable of generating dreams. This suggest that atonia evolved for some reason other than the inhibition of movement amid dreaming. Animal studies have shown that "...subceruleus lesions created REM sleep without atonia." Therefore, atonia is not essential to the production of REM. The position...

In my haste, I did not include these reference, http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/1611494 and Absence of shivering in the cat during paradoxical sleep without atonia, for that quote. Please pardon my oversight. Also, low-decerebrate studies have shown that test animals experience atonia when not being fed or otherwise stimulated for the duration of their survival period (Proposed model of postural atonia in a decerebrate cat). This suggests the evolutionary root and association of atonia, which is mediated by neurons in one of the most primitive segments of our central nervous system, with metabolic mediation amid periods of privation and inactivity.

This post has been edited by DrmDoc: 14 January 2012 - 07:47 PM