Changes in sleep-wakefulness in the medial preoptic area lesioned rats: role of thermal preference

The mPOA seems to be essential for increasing the durations of slow wave sleep (SWS) episodes, especially the light SWS (S1), as they remained shorter than the pre-lesion value, even when the rats were given freedom to stay in a preferred Tamb. The homeostatic recovery of sleep, especially the night time sleep, resulted in the disruption of circadian sleep rhythm. But, the LMA, Tb and thermal preference maintained their diurnal variation. Tb and LMA were elevated after the mPOA lesion and they remained so till the end of the study.