Five in the morning, the cafeteria.
Song He wolfed down steamed buns while his laptop sat beside him, its screen covered with zigzagging lines rising and falling.
The lines represented brain-cell signals from experimental mice and monkeys, provided by Xiang Xiaotong's research team. The principle behind producing them was simple: fluorescent proteins were used to mark some neurons. When neural activity generated electrical signals, the fluorescent proteins brightened, and the strength of the light signals could then be used to characterize brain activity.
Song He watched, fascinated, especially focusing on the differences between the lines during wakefulness and sleep.
When the mice and monkeys were asleep, their hippocampi underwent large-scale oscillations at 0.1 Hz. About every ten seconds, a huge number of brain cells would flash together, as lively as fireworks.
Once they woke up, however, that liveliness disappeared, and the brain cells operated in an extremely steady and orderly manner.
Amazing. It seemed that during sleep, the brain ran like a wild horse, while when awake, it instead became sluggish and lacking in vitality.
As Song He watched, he even forgot to eat. Half a steamed bun remained in his hand, motionless for a long time.
Suddenly, a figure sat down across from him!
Song He jumped and quickly shut the laptop before looking up.
A... Octopus Bro?
Swollen eyelids, dull eyes, a sparse, hairless bald head, clear wrinkles running across his forehead, and an expression of cold indifference and disgust toward the world—he looked just like Octopus Bro from the cartoon.
"Hello?" Song He guessed who was sitting opposite him.
"Song He?" Octopus Bro sized him up, his tone cold. "I'm Tan Xi."
"Professor Tan, I've long heard of you!" Song He put down the bun and spoke politely.
"Stop working on the Sleeping Pill project by yourself.