Talk:Ontogeny of sleep
This is a disappointingly unscholarly, self-serving, and innacurate "review" of the present state of the field. Many of the ideas presented here have already been contradicted by published empirical research. And yet Prof. Heller persists. I could try to improve this page, but it really needs completely overhaul.
Reviewer A's comments:
This review is compiled by one of the foremost sleep experts in the sleep field, particularly in regards sleep ontogeny in mammals. The article is extremely well written and concise. In its brevity, however, some of the details of interest are lost. For instance, it is not always clear which species certain characteristics being discussed apply to. The discussion of PGO waves is an example. As far as I am aware, the ontogenetic study of PGO waves has only been done in the kitten, this and the fact that it is not found in all mammals is not mentioned. Also, the naïve reader might not be clear on the concept of PGO waves, as it is not described herein.
Another important issue that arises, perhaps also a result of the attempt at brevity, is the complete lack of references in the body of the article. As a review article it would be much more useful if specific points being made were supported by an appropriate journal or book reference. Including references in the body and providing a Literature Cited list, rather than just a “See Also” section, is in keeping with the scholarly format being adopted by most authors in Scholarpedia.
In addition, the review would be strengthened as a resource with the addition of a table or two to lay out some of the developmental milestones for the several species that are included in the review. This would allow the reader to better appreciate the ontogenetic time course for the appearance of the major correlates of REM and NREM sleep, for example.
A final point is in regard the section on BAS and BQS not necessarily being homologous with REM and NREM sleep, wherein it is stated that cholinergic blockade has no effect on BAS. This point may need to be reconsidered in the light of the paper recently published by Gall et al. (EJNeurosci, 25:3367-3375, 2007). Referring back to the earlier point on citing references, by doing so in this section, the reader would be better able to decide for themselves which point of view fits the data best.
