Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 108, Issue 37, Pages 15438-15443Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1112503108
Keywords
sleep spindles; neuroimaging; fMRI; auditory perception; sleep physiology
Categories
Funding
- Belgian Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS)
- Fondation Medicale Reine Elisabeth
- University of Liege
- Interuniversity Attraction Poles Programme-Belgian State-Belgian Science Policy
- European Sleep Research Society
- Belgian American Educational Foundation
- Belgian Neurological Society
- Fonds Leon Fredericq
- Horlait- Dapsens Medical Foundation
- Wallonie-Bruxelles International
- Austrian Science Fund [J2470-B02]
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- National Institutes of Health [R01 EB009282]
- Fonds Leon Fredericq (Belgium)
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Humans are less responsive to the surrounding environment during sleep. However, the extent to which the human brain responds to external stimuli during sleep is uncertain. We used simultaneous EEG and functional MRI to characterize brain responses to tones during wakefulness and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. Sounds during wakefulness elicited responses in the thalamus and primary auditory cortex. These responses persisted in NREM sleep, except throughout spindles, during which they became less consistent. When sounds induced a K complex, activity in the auditory cortex was enhanced and responses in distant frontal areas were elicited, similar to the stereotypical pattern associated with slow oscillations. These data show that sound processing during NREM sleep is constrained by fundamental brain oscillatory modes (slow oscillations and spindles), which result in a complex interplay between spontaneous and induced brain activity. The distortion of sensory information at the thalamic level, especially during spindles, functionally isolates the cortex from the environment and might provide unique conditions favorable for off-line memory processing.
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