DISTURBANCES OF RAPID EYE MOVEMENTS DURING SLEEP IN PATIENTS WITH LESIONS OF NERVOUS SYSTEM

Rapid eye movements during paradoxical sleep have been studied in nine patients with lesions of the nervous system. When nystagmus is present while the patient is awake, this nystagmus can also be seen to accompany REMs. Palsies of voluntary gaze abolish REMs toward the paralyzed side. Some patients who have recovered from gaze palsies may have REMs only toward the previously unaffected side. In patients with severe chronic Wernicke-Korsakoff's disease, REMs may be absent presumably due to affection of the vestibular nuclei. These findings support those in animals where lesions of vestibular nuclei have been shown to abolish REMs. In animals the visual cortex was found to be facilitatory whereas the frontal cortex inhibitory on REMs and this is probably also true for man because of the marked depression of REMs in patients with visual cortex lesions which presumably allowed excessive frontal inhibitions of REMs. © 1968.