Anyone who has ever put a baby to sleep by gently cradling it or has ever taken a nap in a hammock knows that rocking promotes sleep. But why?
Anyone who has ever put a baby to sleep by gently cradling it or has ever taken a nap in a hammock knows that rocking promotes sleep. But why? To understand this phenomenon and the brain mechanisms at stake, researchers from the universities of Geneva (UNIGE), Lausanne (UNIL) and from the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG) have conducted two studies: one on young adults and the other on mice. Their results, published in Current Biology, show that slow and repeated movement throughout the night modulates brain wave activity. Consequently, not only does balancing induce deeper sleep, but it also helps to strengthen memory, which is consolidated during certain sleep phases.
UNIGE scientists had already shown in a previous study that swinging during a 45-minute nap helps people fall asleep faster and sleep more deeply. But what are the effects of this slow movement on the brain? To find out more, the researchers, in association with colleagues from UNIL, conducted two new studies – one on human beings and the other on rodents – as part of a joint SNSF grant that allows researchers in basic and clinical research to work together on a common issue.
The first study, led in Geneva by Laurence Bayer, a researcher at the Department of Basic Neurosciences at UNIGE Faculty of Medicine and at the HUG Sleep Medicine Centre, and Sophie Schwartz, Full Professor at the Department of Basic Neurosciences at UNIGE Faculty of Medicine, explores the impact of continuous rocking on sleep and on the brain waves that characterize it. Eighteen healthy young adults spent one night at the HUG Sleep Medicine Centre to make polysomnographic recordings during which several physiological variables were recorded (heart rate, respiratory rate, electroencephalogram, etc.). Once familiar with this unusual environment, the young volunteers spent two nights at the Sleep Medicine Centre, one on a moving bed and the other on the same bed, but in a still position.
Read more at University of Geneva
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