Method for real-time optical brain monitoring in freely moving mice during wakefulness and natural sleep

Sleep is an integral part of the life of all living organisms, which is necessary for maintaining health. Recent scientific evidence has established that sleep is a marker for the development of many brain diseases. However, these discoveries are phenomenological, because there are very few methods for studying the sleeping brain. It is obvious that the development of technologies for intravital and real-time monitoring of the sleeping brain of animals will open the door to progress in understanding the restorative mechanisms of sleep and the control of these processes. In this study, we demonstrate a unique approach for simultaneous real-time monitoring of the sleeping brain in freely moving mice. Due to training of mice and careful selection of only those animals in the experiment that can demonstrate sleep, the method allows for effective long-term studies of the brain under natural sleep maintaining optimal conditions that minimize stress in animals. A new proposed method for studying the sleeping brain in real time will allow significant advances in the study of restorative mechanisms of sleep and will stimulate the development of promising smart-sleep technologies for therapy of brain diseases associated with sleep deficit or disturbance.