Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is a sleep disorder (more specifically a parasomnia) in which people act out their dreams. It involves abnormal behavior during the sleep phase with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. The major feature of RBD is loss of muscle atonia (i.e., the loss of paralysis) during otherwise intact REM sleep (during which paralysis is not only normal but necessary). REM sleep is the stage of sleep in which most vivid dreaming occurs. The loss of motor inhibition leads to a wide spectrum of behavioral release during sleep. This
Rapid eye movement sleep the developing brain by providing the neural stimulation that newborns need to form mature neural connections. Sleep deprivation have shown that deprivation early in life can result in behavioral problems, permanent sleep disruption, and decreased brain mass, and can result in an abnormal amount of neuronal cell death. The strongest evidence for the ontogenetic hypothesis comes from experiments on REM deprivation and the development of the visual system in the lateral geniculate nucleus and primary visual cortex. Ioannis Tsoukalas of Stockholm University has hypothesized that REM sleep is an evolutionary transformation of a well-known defensive mechanism, the tonic immobility reflex.