Mapping the physiological changes in sleep regulation across infancy and young childhood
Fig 5
The sleep/wake states are produced by mutual inhibition between the sleep-promoting VLPO (blue) and wake-promoting MA neuronal populations (red). The MA receives excitatory input from orexin neurons and cholinergic (Ach) neurons. The sleep drive is a combination of a homeostatic sleep drive (purple) and a light-entrained circadian drive (green). The circadian drive is entrained by the daily light cycle (yellow), and gated by the arousal state (no influence from light when asleep). Arrows denote excitatory connections, flat line ends denote inhibitory connections.