Current biology : CB
April 12, 2021
Karen R Konkoly, Kristoffer Appel, Emma Chabani et al.
126 citations
People who are asleep and having a lucid dream—aware that they are dreaming—can perceive questions from an experimenter and answer them in real time using eye movements and facial muscle contractions. In a study of 36 individuals during REM sleep, including frequent lucid dreamers, a novice, and a patient with narcolepsy, participants performed perceptual analysis of new information, held information in working memory, computed simple answers, and gave volitional replies. Correct answers occurred on 29 occasions across 6 individuals, documented by four independent laboratories. This two-way communication channel allows real-time interrogation of dream cognition and characteristics.
Communications Biology
June 29, 2022
Anira Escrichs, Yonatan Sanz Perl, Carme Uribe et al.
67 citations
Different brain states—resting, meditating, deep sleep, and disorders of consciousness after coma—are underpinned by distinct spatiotemporal dynamics that can be characterized using turbulence theory. Non-conscious states tend to be more synchronous, while conscious states are more asynchronous, but the work goes beyond this simple dichotomy. A model-free analysis of human neuroimaging data applied Kuramoto's turbulence framework with coupled oscillators and measured information cascades across spatial scales. A complementary model-based approach used exhaustive computer simulations of whole-brain models fitted to those measures to study information encoding. The framework shows that turbulence theory provides excellent tools for describing and differentiating between brain states.
Interface Focus
April 14, 2023
Elvira G-Guzmán, Yonatan Sanz Perl, Jakub Vohryzek et al.
34 citations
Living systems must constantly work against equilibrium to survive, a property that can be measured through temporal asymmetry in brain signals. Using statistical physics, researchers analyzed reversibility in functional magnetic resonance imaging data from patients with disorders of consciousness. They found that decreased asymmetry and reduced non-stationarity in brain signals characterize impaired consciousness states, consistent with previous findings in sleep and anesthesia. The work aims to identify biomarkers for patient improvement and classification, and to deepen mechanistic understanding of consciousness disorders.
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
June 22, 2026
Julie Boyer, Nathan Beraud, Benoît Béranger et al.
Conscious perception is linked to all-or-none late brain activations that exhibit bifurcation dynamics, even without a task. Using fMRI and near-threshold auditory stimulation, this study identified the brain networks producing these bifurcations and how they differ depending on task context. Stimulus intensity modulated activity across broad networks including sensory and extra-sensory regions like the prefrontal cortex in both task and no-task contexts. These networks had both shared and distinct components. Single-trial modeling revealed bifurcation dynamics beyond primary sensory cortices and allowed prediction of conscious perception on individual trials in both contexts, resolving previous conflicting results and showing common networks and dynamics underlying conscious perception regardless of task.
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
September 1, 2025
Jean-Baptiste Maranci, Pierre Champetier, Delphine Oudiette et al.
preprint
Dreams during REM sleep are emotionally fluid and fast-changing, with positive and negative emotions alternating frequently. In a study of 24 lucid dreamers with narcolepsy who reported emotional valence in real-time using facial codes during daytime naps monitored with polysomnography, 62 of 126 naps contained at least one emotional code during REM sleep, yielding 191 codes total. Positive and negative codes were evenly balanced per nap, and over half of naps with at least two codes showed opposite valences. The average duration of a given emotional valence was about one minute, with positive emotions emerging earlier than negative ones. These findings suggest that the emotional dynamics of REM sleep dreams may contribute to understanding how dreams help regulate emotions.
PLoS Computational Biology
February 1, 2026
Tao Xia, Chuan-Peng Hu, Başak Türker et al.
Sleep is often seen as a state of mental disconnection, but new research shows that decision-making abilities can persist during certain sleep stages. Using facial muscle measurements and computational modeling, the study found that people could make lexical decisions (distinguishing real words from pseudowords) during N1 sleep and lucid REM sleep, though through different brain processes. During N1 sleep, both enhanced sensory-motor processing and increased evidence accumulation supported decisions about words, while pseudowords were selectively impaired, suggesting cognitive resources prioritize meaningful stimuli. In lucid REM sleep, decisions relied solely on evidence accumulation, and participants raised their decision thresholds, requiring more evidence before responding to maintain accuracy despite reduced efficiency. Sleep involves dynamic, state-specific reconfiguration of decision-making mechanisms rather than passive cognitive decline.
Nature and Science of Sleep
January 1, 2022
Raphael Vallat, Başak Türker, Alain Nicolas et al.
People who frequently recall their dreams show greater functional connectivity in the default mode network (DMN) during resting wakefulness and score higher on creativity tests than those who rarely recall dreams. No significant difference in memory abilities appeared between the groups. However, creativity scores did not correlate significantly with DMN connectivity. These findings support the idea that dreaming and mind wandering are related spontaneous mental processes linked to the DMN, and suggest that increased DMN activity may promote creative thinking during both wakefulness and sleep, though causal evidence remains to be established.