Posterior Cortical Hot Zone

Posterior Cortical Hot Zone

Reviewed by Faisal Zaidi

A region at the back of the brain whose activity tracked dream reports across sleep stages in a 2017 study.

What it is

Siclari and colleagues used high-density recordings with repeated awakenings. Reports of dreaming went with a local drop in slow activity in a region at the back of the brain, in both rapid-eye-movement and other sleep, and faster activity there tracked specific dream content. Monitoring the region predicted in real time whether a person woke with a dream to report.

In effect

In the article on why we dream, it brings the history up to the present, with dreaming located in a brain region rather than a sleep stage.

What it does not say

It identifies a correlate of dreaming. It does not explain what dreams are for.

Sources

  1. Siclari, F., Baird, B., Perogamvros, L., Bernardi, G., LaRocque, J. J., Riedner, B. A., Boly, M., Postle, B. R., & Tononi, G. (2017). The neural correlates of dreaming. Nature Neuroscience, 20(6), 872-878.