The 20th annual Symposium will be held on Thursday, April 23, 2009.

Investigating the Developmental Aspect of Unihemispheric Sleep in Bearded Dragons (Pogona vitticeps)
Norris 102, 9:15 AM

Halie  Kerver,   '09 43
   Major: Psychology (Neuroscience)
   Hometown: Jackson, MI

Sponsor(s): Tammy Jechura
Support:  

Abstract: 
Unihemispheric sleep is an evolutionary process that occurs when one hemisphere of an animal’s brain is in a sleep stage, while the other hemisphere is alert. It may be observed through asynchronous eye closure, during which the animal sleeps with one eye open and one eye closed. In this study, eye state recordings of several bearded dragons (Pogona vitticeps) were made using a 4-camera system to record eye states during the habituation to a novel environment. Unihemispheric sleep was defined by the presence of asynchronous eye closure, and eye states were judged in five-minute intervals over three 24-hour periods, from the beginning of habituation to a new environment through typical behavior in a familiar environment. It is expected that unihemispheric will gradually decrease as the dragons habituate to the new environment, suggesting an evolutionary importance to unihemispheric sleep as an anti-predator survival technique. The developmental aspect of unihemispheric sleep was also observed in juvenile dragons, with a prediction that the young animals would display more unihemispheric sleep than adult dragons because of a greater overall amount of sleep in young animals and an increased predation risk.

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