The first question asked in sleep research is why the state of sleep exists, in other words, why do we need sleep at all, why spend one third of our lives sleeping? Assuming that the brain adapts an animal to its environment, why has sleep evolved? It may be the other way around. The sleeping state may be primary and waking and consciousness came later in which case we should ask why we need to be awake.   In thinking about sleep and other altered brain states, it occurred to me, that the brain, among organs, is not unique in having altered states. What first popped into my head is the liver amongst all the boringest organs being in a state of gluconeogenesis or nongluconeogenisis, that is at some points, influenced by hormones such as insulin, glucagon, epinephrine the liver is either making or storing glucose. And what about the lowly kidney? Hormones and other messengers are telling it either to reabsorb or store more salt, to raise or lower blood pressure. The heart is at least pumping and we place it on a higher pedestal. At any given moment the heart is in systole or diastole, that is squeezing or relaxing. More than that it may be pumping hard as in exercise or calm and relaxed. And the heart is subject to a host of neural and endocrine controls. So is the brain, organ among organs.

A lot of us assume that the brain is the boss of all organs and so it is to an extent. But the brain does constantly receive signals and even orders from the organs it supposedly supervises and commands. The best example are all those excitatory and relaxing  hormones to name some, epinephrine, cortisone, testosterone, progesterone and on and on. The most obvious dichotomy is the brain and body may either be in a state of vigilance and readiness or blissful uncaring sleep.  Like diastole and systole for the heart, this is a major oversimplification.

In examining brain states in humans we might look back at other animals. Our close vertebrate relatives certainly distinguish sleep from the waking state. They have also other altered states which like humans can be induced by alcohol and other drugs. Distant relatives like insects and even malarial plasmodia which I mention in trying to find an organism that is very distantly related in order to discover a universal, may indeed have dormant and active and other states but these are decidedly more difficult to discern and they may involve more complex cycles involving alteration of form or even switching from haploid to diploid forms. As for our close vertebrate relatives, such as your dog, different mental states are easy to see, or else, their brains being similar to our own we can image them or paste on wires of an EEG. The EEG has been the traditional tool for observing brain states.

In observing infants and prematures you almost have to come to a conclusion opposite to the sleep researchers. Among brain states, sleep arose first and then the waking state. As we all know the tiniest infants are not awake and do nothing but sleep. According the principle proposed by Haeckel , which is admittedly not always correct, that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, it is sleep, not waking that is the primordial state from which all others, arousal, waking, consciousness, altered consciousness, eventually develop. in fact there seems to be a totally undifferentiated primordial brain state in prematures maybe a type of non-state exalted nirvana out of which all of  our subsequent troubles derive.

Behavioral observations and EEG combine to give some picture of early development. One question might be when in the fetus electrical activity first begins in the brain at all. For some this might bear on the banal question of when life begins. As you can imagine it is difficult to record the tiny brain potentials non-invasively in the womb and separate these tiny voltages from artifact, but some brainstem and non cortical potentials have supposedly been recorded very early on. As far as EEG electrodes recording mostly from the cortical brain, the first furtive activity of prematures at the cusp of viability about 24 weeks gestation is highly discontinuous with long periods of total silence. While the baby may appear active, you can’t tell if he or she is awake or not. The best that can be said is the primordial brain state is undifferentiated. This reminds me of the biblical creation story where all is undifferentiated and the Divine breath separates first the waters of heavens and the seas, and  still later that same breath (soul)  will be infused into Adam and then there is the wind to separate the Red Sea and allowing the Hebrews to walk through on dry land. In other words we have primordial indifference  than separation. And it is the same as embryonic cells dividing to morula then blastula each division of seemingly identical cells forming more and more differentiated offspring (please see previous Cloning Against Biology).

To me it is highly significant that the first state that we see in premature infants is undifferentiated. At first, it is impossible to tell if the infant is awake or asleep, much less if he or she is in active or non-active, precursors to REM v. slow wave sleep. And these are just the most basic of all mental states. One cannot even discern at this early juncture if there is even such a thing as a mental state. To this I will add one more point before continuing at another time. The EEG is a convenient means of recording brain states. It is scheduled to change drastically as the premature infant matures during the first months of extrauterine life when altered states of sleep and awakening, what may be called electrical quickening, become obvious. The EEG will observe the topmost extent of the nervous system. One process also occurring in early life is myelination  which is instrumental in the brain’s cortex communicating with the rest of the body. Not only is the cortex immature, but connections have yet to develop.