Rattenborg Niels C, Lima Steven L, Amlaner Charles J
Department of Life Sciences, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana 47809, USAe-mail:
Nature. 1999 Feb 4;397(6718):397-398. doi: 10.1038/17037.
Birds have overcome the problem of sleeping in risky situations by developing the ability to sleep with one eye open and one hemisphere of the brain awake. Such unihemispheric slow-wave sleep is in direct contrast to the typical situation in which sleep and wakefulness are mutually exclusive states of the whole brain. We have found that birds can detect approaching predators during unihemispheric slow-wave sleep, and that they can increase their use of unihemispheric sleep as the risk of predation increases. We believe this is the first evidence for an animal behaviourally controlling sleep and wakefulness simultaneously in different regions of the brain.
鸟类通过进化出单眼睁开、一侧大脑半球保持清醒的睡眠能力，克服了在危险环境中睡眠的问题。这种单侧脑半球慢波睡眠与典型情况形成直接对比，在典型情况下，睡眠和清醒是全脑相互排斥的状态。我们发现，鸟类在单侧脑半球慢波睡眠期间能够察觉到接近的捕食者，并且随着被捕食风险的增加，它们会更多地采用单侧脑半球睡眠。我们认为，这是动物在大脑不同区域同时对睡眠和清醒进行行为控制的首个证据。
