• Question: do our brains ever fall asleep?

    Asked by hermiony evie to Omur, Maddison, Jimi, Hayley, Chris on 11 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Hayley Moulding

      Hayley Moulding answered on 11 Mar 2016:

      That is a fantastic question! Absolutely great. So our brains do ‘fall asleep’, but by this I mean that the activity in the brain changes when we fall asleep. When we are awake, we are active and ready to do lots of different things so that means that are brains are also ready to do things. Our brain control our ability to be awake, as well as being asleep. So when we fall asleep, the activity in our brains (all the little brain cells and electrical activity) reduces. If you think of the sea, you know when there is a massive wave, and loads that come in really quickly, that is what it is like in our brain when we are awake. Now try and think about when there are less waves coming onto the sand, and they are really slow, that is what it is like when we are sleeping. The waves slow down and there are less of them when we eventually go into a ‘deeper sleep.’ So ours brains are always working, but there is time for a brain to be a bit slower and work on our memories rather than keeping us awake. That was a great question!

    • Photo: Chris Conselice

      Chris Conselice answered on 11 Mar 2016:

      The brain doesn’t fall asleep the same way a body does – it is always on, like a computer that doesn’t get shut off. When we are awake and doing things it is like the computer running lots of different programmes, as opposed to just sitting doing nothing.

    • Photo: Jimi Wills

      Jimi Wills answered on 11 Mar 2016:

      Our brains are always active, but the type of activity changes depending on what we’re doing. Even when you in a deep sleep and not dreaming, you brain is still doing stuff.

      But, even if you could stop the brain completely… it would still have all the information in it (memories, etc) because this information is remembered by the connections between your brain cells. The connections are changed by the activity. That’s why it’s easier to remember stuff that you do more often, because the activity strengthen the connection. So even if you “switch the brain off” all those connection will still be there. (for a while anyway)

    • Photo: Omur Tastan

      Omur Tastan answered on 11 Mar 2016:

      I think, they are not as active as they are when we are awake. But, it has to be somewhat active to manage our body, I mean keep it alive 🙂

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