In article <CtJvIo.FJ9 at murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
asa3h at galen.med.Virginia.EDU (Adam Stephen Arthur) wrote:
>> I ran across an interesting thing about dolphin brains last
> year. Appparently their two hemispheres are alternately
> active. The original reference was (if I remember correctly)
> in Penrose's "The Emperor's New Mind" but I ran it down and
> found it quite fascinating. EEG recordings showed delta wave
> patterns in one hemisphere (sleep?) while the other was active
> and vice versa. The supposition was that since they are
> aquatic mammals, this was a mechanism to keep them moving at
> all times; the organism as a whole never slept. The
> possible implications for human hemisphericity are interesting.
>> I'd love to hear if anyone knows whether other species (aquatic
> mammals or otherwise) do anything similar from someone out
> there who studies this sort of thing.
Birds do it (but not bees or educated fleas).
Eric Wassermann
Human Motor Control Section, NINDS, NIH
