Which hemisphere falls asleep first?
Behavioral tasks (reaction times to acoustic stimuli and finger tapping tasks) performed by normal subjects when sleepy or attempting to fall asleep have been used as indices of hemispheric asymmetries during the sleep onset period. Results show a stronger impairment of the left hemisphere (right hand) both in reacting to external stimuli and in sustaining endogenous motor programs. The left hemisphere seems to fall asleep earlier than the right hemisphere.
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time; D012890:Sleep; D012894:Sleep Stages; D014851:Wakefulness