Fatigue and the rat-ional mind

Interesting little story (by Valerie Ross) in the current issue of Discover magazine that might shed some light on why we make dumb mistakes when we’re tired.  Giulio Tononi of the University of Wisconsin at Madison kept rats up past their bedtime with interesting new toys to explore. The rats seemed alert, but their EEGs showed that little groups of neurons went offline for brief periods, sometimes resulting in clumsiness or other rat errors. The longer the rats stayed awake, the more often these little neuro-naps occurred.

I wonder if that’s the reason why…oh, sorry.  I’m a little tired this morning.  What was I saying?