Short Communication

An allometric scaling law for understanding mammalian sleep

Ji-Huan He

Modern Textile Institute, Donghua University, 1882 Yan'an Xilu Road,  Shanghai 200051, China. E-mail: jhhe@dhu.edu.cn. Tel/Fax: 86-21-62378066.

Accepted 6 February, 2008

An allometric scaling law is established for explaining sleep time per day which scales with brain mass. The theoretical prediction agrees well with Savage and West’s experimental data.

Key words: Metabolic rate, white matter, gray matter, allometric scaling, sleep time.