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Researchers have discovered a sleep-promoting circuit located deep in the primitive brainstem that reveals how we fall into deep sleep, according to a new study.

The node is only the second 'sleep node' identified in the mammalian brain whose activity appears to be both necessary and sufficient to produce deep sleep.

The study demonstrated that fully half of all the brain's sleep-promoting activity originated from the parafacial zone (PZ) in the brainstem. 

"The close association of a sleep center with other regions that are critical for life highlights the evolutionary importance of sleep in the brain," said Caroline E. Bass, assistant professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and a co-author on the paper, in the press release. 

Researchers noted that a specific type of neuron in the PZ that makes the neurotransmitter  gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is responsible for deep sleep. 

"These new molecular approaches allow unprecedented control over brain function at the cellular level," said Christelle Ancelet, postdoctoral fellow at Harvard School of Medicine. "Before these tools were developed, we often used 'electrical stimulation' to activate a region, but the problem is that doing so stimulates everything the electrode touches and even surrounding areas it didn't. It was a sledgehammer approach, when what we needed was a scalpel."

The study was published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.