REM sleep vs exploratory wakefulness: Alternatives within adult ‘sleep debt’?

Our declining sleep duration over early human infant development is largely through REM sleep (REM), loss, not of nonREM. It coincides with the infant's increasing locomotion providing for multisensory inputs (‘exploratory wakefulness’ – EW), together facilitating neural restructuring and behavioural adaptations (‘neuroplasticity’). EW also involves curiosity, novelty, navigation, spatial memory, associated emotions, and feeding; all having...