Sleep and Breathing

UTICA, NY – SUNY Poly Associate Professor of Biopsychology, Dr. Andrew Gallup, recently penned an opinion published in Sleep and Breathing, responding to a review article arguing that rapid eye movement (REM) sleep has “evolved as a thermostatically controlled brain heating mechanism,” an extension of research published three decades prior.

Gallup highlights how the evidence supporting that argument provides “novel support for the brain cooling hypothesis of yawning,” that he’s published research on and been interviewed about in the past. Furthermore, Gallup states that the brain heating hypothesis of REM sleep is “highly consistent with, and further supports, our current understanding of the adaptive significance of why we yawn.”

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