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Event‐related potentials to tones in the absence and presence of sleep spindles
Author(s) -
ELTON MARTIN,
WINTER OSCAR,
HESLENFELD DIRK,
LOEWY DEREK,
CAMPBELL KENNETH,
KOK ALBERT
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of sleep research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.297
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1365-2869
pISSN - 0962-1105
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2869.1997.00033.x
Subject(s) - sleep spindle , sleep (system call) , audiology , neurophysiology , psychology , tone (literature) , adaptation (eye) , spectral analysis , electroencephalography , neuroscience , physics , slow wave sleep , medicine , computer science , operating system , art , literature , quantum mechanics , spectroscopy
The present study focused on event‐related potentials to tones in the presence and absence of sleep spindles. Six undergraduates were studied throughout an experimental night, following an adaptation session. The event‐related potentials to tone stimuli were averaged for each subject. Separate averages were determined for trials on which no sleep spindle occurred 2 s before or after a tone and trials in which spindle activity was present. Both voltage distribution maps and multivariate analysis of the waveforms produced significant differences between these conditions, which could be seen as a higher initial positive component and sustained positivity over the averaged epoch in the presence of spindles. Spectral analysis indicated that this result could not solely be ascribed to residual sigma activity in the spindle‐present average. The results may provide insights into the functional role of sleep spindles in humans in addition to that suggested by a neurophysiological model of inhibition.