Rapid eye movement sleep and its relationship to feeding behavior in the adult cat.

The aim of this study was to corroborate a previous report that, in cats kept on a 12:12-hr light-dark schedule, there is a highly significant negative correlation between the quantity of REM sleep in a 12-hr period and food intake in the subsequent 12-hr interval. Analyses of sleep-wake and food intake measures from freely behaving adult cats failed to disclose any consistent correlations between food consumption and REM sleep quantities in the same or adjacent 12-hr periods; amounts of waking (or total sleep) and slow-wave sleep also showed no consistent relationship to food intake. These findings question assertions that REM sleep participates directly in regulating the expression of motivated behaviors.