REM

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does REM mean? 

• REM (noun)
  The noun REM has 2 senses:

1. a recurring sleep state during which dreaming occurs; a state of rapidly shifting eye movements during sleep

2. (roentgen equivalent man) the dosage of ionizing radiation that will cause the same amount of injury to human tissue as 1 roentgen of X-rays

  Familiarity information: REM used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• REM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A recurring sleep state during which dreaming occurs; a state of rapidly shifting eye movements during sleep

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

paradoxical sleep; rapid eye movement; rapid eye movement sleep; REM; REM sleep

Hypernyms ("REM" is a kind of...):

sleep; slumber (a natural and periodic state of rest during which consciousness of the world is suspended)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(roentgen equivalent man) the dosage of ionizing radiation that will cause the same amount of injury to human tissue as 1 roentgen of X-rays

Classified under:

Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure

Hypernyms ("rem" is a kind of...):

radioactivity unit (a measure of radioactivity)

 Context examples 

Sleep is composed of various cycles in which there are different stages: slow and fast-wave, which make up non-REM sleep and REM sleep.

(Brain Is Still 'Connected' during Non-REM Sleep, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Further experiments suggested that MCH neurons exclusively played this role during REM sleep.

(The brain may actively forget during dream sleep, National Institutes of Health)

A mental phenomenon occurring during sleep in which images, emotions, and thoughts are experienced with a sense of reality; occurs during REM sleep.

(Dreaming, NCI Thesaurus)

Normally, such spindles only follow hippocampal ripples during non-rapid-eye-movement (non-REM) stages of sleep.

(Seizures disrupt memory network, NIH)

Notably, stimulation of the same neurons during REM sleep did not show any effects on sleep/wakefulness states.

(The Secret Connection between Anxiety, Sleep, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

“Our results suggest that the firing of a particular group of neurons during REM sleep controls whether the brain remembers new information after a good night’s sleep.”

(The brain may actively forget during dream sleep, National Institutes of Health)

Spindles that occur outside normal non-REM sleep (while awake or during REM) could suggest IED activity in the temporal lobe.

(Seizures disrupt memory network, NIH)

Various investigations have shown that communication between different areas of the cerebral cortex is interrupted during non-REM sleep and also when a patient is under anaesthesia, due to the loss of consciousness.

(Brain Is Still 'Connected' during Non-REM Sleep, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Mice performed better on memory tests when MCH neurons were turned off during REM sleep.

(The brain may actively forget during dream sleep, National Institutes of Health)

In rats that experienced seizures, hippocampal IEDs also elicited cortical spindles during REM and an awake state.

(Seizures disrupt memory network, NIH)