Falling asleep follows a predictable bifurcation dynamic
Sleep is a fundamental part of our lives; yet, how our brain falls asleep remains one of the most enduring mysteries of neuroscience. Here we report a new conceptual framework to analyze and model this phenomenon. The framework represents the changes in brain electroencephalogram activity during the transition into sleep as a trajectory in a normalized feature space. We use the framework to show that the brain's wake-to-sleep transition follows bifurcation dynamics with a distinct tipping point preceded by a critical slowing down. We validate the bifurcation dynamics in two independent datasets, which include more than 1,000 human participants. Finally, we demonstrate the framework's utility by predicting a person's progression into sleep in real time with seconds temporal resolution and over 0.95 average accuracy.
Authors
- Anastasia Ilina
- Inês R. Violante (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4787-2901)
- Tianyu Wei (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7549-9526)
- Nir Grossman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2002-9049)
- Mauricio Barahona (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1089-5675)
- Robert L. Peach (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8738-5825)
- Valeria Jaramillo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1446-8328)
- Derk‐Jan Dijk (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5314-1008)
- E. J. Rhodes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5137-6313)
- Junheng Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6210-5997)
Institutions
- King's College London (GB)
- University of Surrey (GB)
- NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre (GB)
- Universitätsklinikum Würzburg (DE)
- UK Dementia Research Institute (GB)
- Imperial College London (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Neuroscience
- Published
- 2025-10-28
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-025-02091-1
- Citations
- 4
- Primary Topic
- Sleep and Wakefulness Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 5.72