If you sleep while you chew, you can get enough rest

The role of sleep in the brains of the Smi, a Reindeer that grew up in the high-norway

They found that during rumination, the reindeer’s brains show an increase in slow waves and rhythmic bursts of activity — patterns that are usually associated with non-REM sleep. Reindeer that did not always have their eyes closed had behaviors similar to sleep. They sat and stood quietly, but did not react to the noises other reindeer made.

“These findings are of particular interest, because we know that there are animals who decrease sleep time depending on environmental conditions, but this seems not to be the case in reindeer,” says Furrer. This shows how essential sleep is and how tightly regulated it is in reindeer.

She thinks it has to do with the environment of the high north, which has a lot of summers and snowy winters. It is a strategy of getting enough time in the summer to fatten up for the winter with low food availability.

A reindeer has four chambers in its stomach and uses the first of them to store grass for later chewing and regurgitation.

These new findings echo the traditional wisdom of the Smi, Indigenous people of Norway who have been herded by reindeer for hundreds of years.

Menno Gerkema, a retired chronobiologist from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who wasn’t involved in the research, finds the study fascinating. He said he was excited about the suggestions that were hidden in the paper. “Suggestions for further research, for looking at other animals.”

The behaviour of f-dwarfs, a type of snorbear, chewed on by a brain infrared brain

“They are in a body position that is very much like deep sleep, while they chew,” Furrer says. So they usually close their eyes and are still.

“Our data was captured without the use of implants in the brain, which is something we would never do at the University of Switzerland,” says Melanie Furrer, a neuroscientist.

They are very active in the summer because of the short growing season. They are lazy in winter when there isn’t a lot of food.

In the summer and winter there is darkness or light in the northern part of the planet, which has challenges for reindeer.