• Question: Is one of our hemispheres in the brain more awake when we sleep than the other? If so why?

    Asked by anon-189202 to Michael, Emma, Yousef, Rachel, Petrina, Jason on 9 Nov 2018. This question was also asked by anon-189449.
    • Photo: Mike Ambler

      Mike Ambler answered on 9 Nov 2018:

      Wow that is a really good question.

      You probably know that mammals that live in the sea (whales, dolphins etc), do exactly this: one side of their brain sleeps while the other is awake to make sure they swim up to the surface to breath.

      I’m not sure whether humans ever do this. I had a quick look and found one study using EEG in humans. Normally if a person is right handed, the left side of their brain is ‘dominant’ (the brain is strange: left side of brain controls right side of body and vice versa). It seems that during sleep this may switch over so that the right side becomes more active.

      This is just one small study though, so it may not prove to be true for everybody and what the purpose of this switching might be is not clear!

      Maybe you can become a scientist and find out?!

Comments