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 animals already in slow-wave sleep. Carbachol, which mimics the effect of acetylcholine on neurons, has a similar influence. In waking humans, the same injections produce paradoxical sleep only if the monoamine neurotransmitters have already been depleted. Two other neurotransmitters, orexin and gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA), seem to promote wakefulness, diminish during deep sleep, and inhibit paradoxical sleep. Unlike the abrupt transitions in electrical patterns, the chemical changes in the brain show continuous periodic oscillation. According to the activation-synthesis hypothesis proposed by Robert McCarley and Allan Hobson in 1975–1977, control over REM sleep involves pathways of "REM-on" and "REM-off" neurons in the