one of the things that a rexin does as a chemical so these neurons are sensing neurons but they are also neurons that will release the chemical contained inside of them which is called erectin why is this important erectin as a chemical is a wake promoting chemical when you release and dump erection into the brain and the body it wakes the brain up it's an alerting chemical and normally it shuts down at night and that's part of the mechanism of what we call the sleep wake switch