![]() Then signals to make movement happen would travel down tracts in the front portion of the spinal cord and go out to the muscles. The signals from the nociceptors would travel up the back of the spinal cord to the brain, possibly to the reticular activating system which is important in sleep and wakening, he suggests. ![]() I suspect it's probably a similar sort of response even when we are asleep." We can tolerate it for a certain length of time and then we have to move. "We've all experienced this when sitting in one position. He thinks unpleasant stimuli from pressure on pain receptors (called nociceptors) initiate a coordinated rolling over response, and this can happen whether we are asleep, or simply lying awake in bed. When patients are paralysed for a long time, for example in intensive care, they need to be turned regularly to prevent pressure sores, he adds. "I think movement while we are asleep is a protective mechanism to prevent problems developing from prolonged pressure - such as reduced blood flow to certain parts of the skin," he says. ![]() "If you just lie in the same position all night you'd probably get stiff joints, and problems with the skin," she suggests.ĭr Peter Roessler, a fellow of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, agrees. She thinks that rolling over during sleep for adults and children is simply a matter of getting comfortable. "There's a big innate drive so that they learn to roll so they can get on all fours and start to crawl," she says, adding that rolling over is a "developmental milestone." "No one that I'm aware of has specifically researched this," says Dr Harriet Hiscock, a paediatric sleep specialist at the Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne.īabies start to roll at about four months, says Hiscock.īefore this time "they don't have the coordination to do it and they are simply not strong enough," she says. Rolling over in bed is something we take for granted, yet it appears we know very little about this basic human movement.
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