Physiology of Sleep Flashcards
1- definition of sleep
2- what does sleep differ from, how?
3- what is it?
1- Sleep is a natural, periodic state (happens at a regular time period) that involves reduced responsiveness to environmental stimuli (when were asleep we don’t pay attention to whats going on around us) and decreased mobility
2- Sleep differs from states such as coma, vegetative state or brain death
— It is reversible
— Self-regulated
3- It is a behaviour observed in humans across cultures and across species
How is sleep studied in humans vs animals
In humans: Subjective and Objective Measures
In animals: Objective measures
Studies in Humans:
subjective vs objective measures
Subjective Measures:
- clinical interviews- ask people questions
- sleep diaries and dream diaries- gold standard way of getting subjective information about peoples sleep/ dreams
- questionnaires and scales
Objective Measures:
- actigraphy- using phones/ watches
- polysomnography (PSG)- recordings of EEGs that have been used to record brain activity during sleep
- PET
- fMRI/ EEG
Polysomnography
1- what is it?
2- discovered by? when?
3- where is it used?
4- what does it involve?
5- what type of tool
1- The ‘gold standard’ of sleep research
2- Discovered by Hans Berger 1929
3- Used in several species for research and clinical purposes
4- Involves the placement of electrodes on the scalp and face to allow recordings of electrical activity from multiple areas, mainly cortical
5- non evasive tool
List the type of polysomnography recordings
Recordings from multiple sources
EEG recordings (electroencephalogram): recordings from populations of neurons in the brain underneath the skull (get recordings from multiple neurons instead of a single one)
EOG recordings (electrooculogram): recordings from the muscles around the eyes
EMG recordings (electromyogram): recordings from the muscles
- These recordings can be combined with measures of heart rate, temperature, breathing (O2) etc.
Polysomnography:
1- disadvantages
2- what effect can be evident?
3- what do EEGs need to be grouped into?
4- recording time?
1- It is costly and requires a special place (sleep lab) and trained personnel
- Although not invasive there may be some discomfort involved
2- First-night effect (for a lot of people changing places/ bedrooms/ on holiday means were not doing our normal regular sleep therefore its usually disrupted on this first night)
3- Need to group EEGs into frequency bands
4- Requires scoring in short periods of time called epochs (i.e. 30-second epochs)
Sleep recordings:
1- what does careful analysis of brain activity and other features reveal?
2- what types of sleep are most commonly talked about?
3- stages?
1- sleep architecture
2- NREM and REM
3- Three stages of sleep (NREM) and an additional REM sleep episode: Stage 1 (N1), Stage 2 (N2), Stage 3 (N3) and REM sleep
*initially 4 distinct stages of NREM and one REM but then revised to 3 by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM)
Brain activity during wakefulness:
how can neuronal activity observed in the EEG during wakefulness vary?
Beta waves consist of irregular activity of 13–30 Hz (and sometimes gamma waves 30+ Hz- even faster)
— Beta activity takes place when the brain is processing information
— The person is alert and attentive to events in the environment or engaging in cognitive processes
Alpha waves consist of activity of 8–12 Hz.
- Occur when a person is resting quietly, not particularly aroused or excited and not engaged in strenuous mental activity
Brain activity during sleep
First 2 steps
- Sleep begins with a state of relaxation, feeling drowsy
- Stage 1 (N1) (3.5–7.5 Hz): presence of theta activity - a transition between sleep and wakefulness. Usually lasts 1-2 min
- A unique feature is the slow eye movements (SEMs) where the eyes roll back and forth slowly (2-4s to move back and forth) and their occurrence seems to coincide with our drifting of awareness (Porte, 2004)
Brain activity during sleep
Next step
Stage 2 (N2) : Sleep begins – irregular activity with sleep spindles (12-14Hz) although these occur in other stages of sleep and K complexes which are only found during stage 2. We spend more time in this stage at night.
(sleep spindles- to do with things such as synaptic plasticity and learning, K complexes- to do with things such as disengaging us from environmental stimuli going on around us)
Brain activity during sleep
Final step
Stage 3 (N3): High-amplitude and low-frequency delta activity (less than 3.5 Hz) or even slower of less than 1Hz (slow oscillations)
- Synchronized, regular waves, reflecting synchrony and coordination of activity of neurons in underlying brain areas
- Brain activity and other bodily functions (heart rate, breathing, kidney function, etc) slow down.
- These stages are collectively referred to as slow-wave sleep [deep sleep]
slow firing of the neurons but they are synchronising very slow activity (like an orchestra)
REM Sleep
- A sleep phase characterized by increased brain activity, eye movements (left and right) and asynchrony in brain waves accompanied by muscle atonia
- Aserinsky and Kleitman,1953: Sleep characterized by rapid eye movements - Rapid Eye Movement sleep (REM)
- Michel Jouvet, 1959: Deep sleep, in terms of muscle activity but light sleep, in terms of increased brain activity, muscles are paralysed - Paradoxical sleep
- Twitches, penile erections, vaginal secretions and dreams also occur during this stage
Discovery of REM sleep
3 time frames
- Eugene Aserinksi (1951) a graduate student recorded his 8y old son’s eyes using a dynograph to detect his son’s blinking and know that he was awake
- In 1953 he published with his advisor, Nathaniel Kleitman in the journal Science the paper “Regularly Occurring Periods of Eye Motility and Concomitant Phenomena, During Sleep” (Reprinted in The Journal of Neuropsychiatry, 2003)
- 1957 – Dement & Kleitman discovered the connection between these eye movements and dreaming
– Recorded from 9 adults who reported 351 dreams
– Dreaming during REM 80% vs 7% during NREM- this seemed like a big difference and they had the conclusion that the phase where our eyes are moving a lot and other things are happening is when they are dreaming
– Thus, dreaming became a biological phenomenon
– they had polysomnography recording on one hand
M. Jouvet (1965)
- At a symposium in 1965, many were emphasizing the similarities between NREM and REM sleep and sleep as a unitary phenomenon
- Dement commented that synchronized and REM sleep..
“are as far as night and day. It is difficult to point to a single attribute that is commonly shared…in terms of definition it would seem more appropriate to regard slow-wave sleep and paradoxical sleep as entirely different states with their own specific mechanism or mechanisms. I would even go so far as to suggest that there may be some validity in questioning whether they should be subsumed under the general heading of sleep”
(from Steriade and McCarley, 2005, p.9)
Study of sleep in animals:
1- primarily based on recordings of electrical activity in animals that are …
2- allow for? + 2 examples
3- what manipulations?
1- Primarily based on recordings of electrical activity in animals that are awake or asleep
2- Allow for greater manipulations: pharmacological, anatomical and behavioural etc
– Allowed for lesions- destroying a particular part of the brain to identify its function, transections (cuts) and pharmacological interventions
– Brain tissue evaluation (staining or labelling specific proteins, etc)
3- Genetic manipulations- you can silence or activate genes and then see if that particular gene has any affect on the behaviour you are observing
Studying Sleep in Animals:
1- who are used?
2- what are rats vs humans?
3- contributions of animal research?
1- Initially cats, but now we primarily use rats and mice, flies are increasingly used as well
2- Rats and mice are nocturnal (active during dark hours and asleep when lights are on) vs humans are diurnal
2- Rats are polyphasic (only have a couple of hours of sleep) when it comes to sleep whereas humans are monophasic
3- Animal research has contributed massively to the advancement of the field
Traditional vs Telemetry Recordings
Example of recording when animals were pressing a lever to get different stimulations
- they would have electrodes that were planted in their skull
- nowadays we can implant a transmitter under their skin so it is a simpler procedure
- transmitter sends information about activity to receiver
- can track movement/ temperature
- can record electrical activity when they are asleep as well as when they are awake
Recordings from a rat: waking, SWS, REM
Waking:
- The EEG is the activity of the brain when the rat was awake- shows there is brain activity
- The EMG is the muscle activity- shows there is some muscle activity but it is quite low
SWS
- everything is slowing down (temperature drops, breathing drops, heart rate slows down)
- muscles are very relaxed (EMG)
REM:
- electrical activity that is similar to wakefulness but there is no muscle activity
Gradual emergence of REM features in a rat
Birth
P0 Limb twitches (thought o aid motor development)
P1 Muscle atonia
P4 Hippocampal theta
P6 Rapid eye movement
P10 Cortical activation
Eye opening
(Things are not all happening at once, they are happening gradually)
Challenges to the standard definition of REM
Using animal examples
Platypus:
in line- rapid eye movements, bill twitching
not in line- but no EEG activation, instead, shows cortical slow waves typical of non-REM sleep
Goose:
in line- rapid eye movements, twitching EEG activation
not in line- but not muscle atonia when the head is not supported
Owl:
in line- twitching, EEG activation, suspended thermoregulation
not in line- but not rem or muscle atonia
Armadillo:
in line- rem, twitching, EEG activation, hippocampal theta, muscle atonia
not in line- but penile erections occur during non-REM sleep
Tegu:
in line- rem
not in line- but not twitching or wake-like brain activation, also as an ectotherm, cannot suspend thermoregulation
REM Microstates in Humans
1- what are microstates typically called
2- what does fMRI distinguish between
3- what phase is response to external stimuli greater in?
4- what is enhanced during phasic REM?
1- Microstates (microstructures) typically called tonic REM and phasic REM states
2- fMRI distinguishes well between these two phases and suggests that REM can be ‘shallow’ or ’deep’
3- Response to external stimuli is greater during the tonic phase of REM
4- During phasic REM there is enhanced thalamocortical synchronized activity
Phasic and Tonic REM microstates:
How do these differ?
The difference is to do with the eye movements:
- Phasic: a lot of eye movements, irregular heart rate.
- Tonic: still rem but eye movements are more quiet and there is a bit more regular heart rate