Call it sleep – what animals without backbones can tell us about the phylogeny of intrinsically generated neuromotor rhythms during early development
1Netherlands Institute for Brain Research, Amsterdam, The Nether lands
2Université de Basse Normandie, Caen, France
Abstract
A comprehensive overview is presented of the literature dealing with the development of sleep-like motility and neuronal activity patterns in non-vertebrate animals. It has been established that spontaneous, periodically modulated, neurogenic bursts of movement appear to be a universal feature of prenatal behavior. New empirical data are presented showing that such ‘seismic sleep’ or ‘rapid-body-movement’ bursts in cuttlefish persist for some time after birth. Extensive ontogenetic research in both vertebrates and non-vertebrates is thus essential before current hypotheses about the phylogeny of motorically active sleep-like states can be taken seriously.
Keywords
sleep phylogeny, behavior development, spontaneous motility, neuronal networks, cuttlefish
