News Neuroscience

A hit of dopamine sends mice into dreamland

What triggers shifts between non-REM and REM sleep has been a mystery

photo of a sleeping mouse in a field

The chemical messenger dopamine can trigger a mouse to shift into REM sleep, a stage of sleep that’s often packed with dreams.

Oriol Guri/EyeEm/Getty Images Plus

By Laura Sanders

- More than 2 years ago

A quick surge of dopamine shifts mice into a dreamy stage of sleep.

In the rodents’ brains, the chemical messenger triggers rapid-eye-movement sleep, or REM, researchers report in the March 4 Science.