posted from: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/?p=8513

When we’re feeling very tired, we sometimes remark that we’re “half-asleep”. But is this more than just a figure of speech? A new paper suggests that parts of our brain may actually ‘fall asleep’ even while we’re still awake.

According to researchers Jeremy D. Slater and colleagues of the University of Texas, “local sleep” occurs throughout the human brain, with each brain region passing into and out of a sleep-like state over time. What’s more, local sleep becomes more and more common in