Neuroscientists: We hear when we are asleep — but we don’t listen
The new finding may help determine whether an apparently unconscious or demented person can actually understand what is said to himEarlier this week, we talked about the fact that the human nose is much more sensitive than we sometimes think. Our sense of smell gets ignored in favor of visual, auditory, or symbolic information — but it’s still there. The same goes with our hearing when we are asleep, researchers say: The researchers were surprised to discover that the brain’s response to sound remains powerful during sleep in all parameters but one: the level of alpha-beta waves associated with attention to the auditory input and related expectations. This means that during sleep, the brain analyzes the auditory input but is unable to focus on the sound or identify it, and therefore no conscious awareness ensues. Tel-Aviv University, “During sleep the…
