An area deep within the brain has been implicated in control of arousal or mental alertness. Two papers in this week's issue of Science [Munk et al. ( p. 271 ) and Castro-Alamancos and Connors ( p. 274 )] show how signals from this area, the midbrain reticular formation, change the physiology of the cortex, the part of the brain that governs higher functions. In his Perspective, Steriade traces the history of this field and discusses the significance of these results.
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Mircea Steriade (1996) studied this question.
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