You probably know the feeling. You are in bed. It is warm and cosy. Your eyes are feeling heavy. You are just about to nod off. Then suddenly your leg jerks for no apparent reason. Well, doctors have worked out the cause – but they do not know the reason for it.
What gives the muscles in our legs this final good-night twitch are the nerve fibres threaded through them. They carry signals from our brains to the muscles all over our bodies. The signals come in the form of tiny electrical impulses. For some reason, a whole bundle of the nerve fibres are sometimes activated simultaneously – just as we are falling asleep. It is a bit mean, but there we are. They all get a shot of electrical impulses at the same time. The leg muscles leap into action and we sit up in bed, jerked awake by one of our limbs and feeling a bit dazed.
Picture Credit : Google
