In a new publication titled “Desynchronization Increased in the Synchronized State: Subsets of Neocortical Neurons Become Strongly Anticorrelated during NonREM Sleep,” researchers led by Dr. Brendon O. Watson (University of Michigan) and co-authors Tangyu Liu and Jeremiah Hartnerdiscovered that not all brain activity in sleep is as synchronized as once believed.
Using 24-hour cortical recordings from rats in natural sleep, the team employed NeuroNexus silicon microelectrode arrays to observe how pairs of neocortical neurons interacted across wake, REM, and nonREM states. Surprisingly, a subset of neuron pairs became strongly anticorrelated during nonREM sleep, a state previously thought to promote only synchronized activity.
These anticorrelations were linked to burst spiking during UP states, not DOWN states, and were enhanced during periods of high delta-band oscillations, revealing new dimensions of how nonREM sleep modulates neural networks.
