What’s the physiological difference between being unconscious, and just being asleep?
In: Biology
Being unconscious would generally mean your brain isn’t working as it should, and is an absence of wakefulness generally caused by pathology (lack of oxygen, stroke, psychiatric) Fainting/coma would fall under this category.
Sleep is regulated by our circadian rhythm driven by a specific portion in the hypothalamus. This portion (called the suprachiasmatic nucleus) affects our arousal state. The absence of wakefulness here is a controlled and metabolically distinct process and can be affected by environment (like light)
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