Twitches emerge postnatally during quiet sleep in human infants and are synchronized with sleep spindles

In humans and other mammals, the stillness of sleep is punctuated by bursts of rapid eye movements (REMs) and myoclonic twitches of the limbs.(1) Like the spontaneous activity that arises from the sensory periphery in other modalities (e.g., retinal waves),(2) sensory feedback arising from twitches is well suited to drive activity dependent development of the sensorimotor system.(3) It is partly because of the behavioral activation of REM sleep that this state is also called active sleep (AS), in contrast with the behavioral quiescence that gives quiet sleep (QS)-the second major stage of sleep-its name. In human infants, for which AS occupies 8 h of each day,(4) twitching helps to identify the state;(5-8) nonetheless, we know little about the structure and functions of twitching across development. Recently, in sleeping infants,(9) we documented a shift in the temporal expression of twitching beginning around 3 months of age that suggested a qualitative change in how twitches are produced. Here, we combine behavioral analysis with high-density electroencephalography (EEG) to demonstrate that this shift reflects the emergence of limb twitches during QS. Twitches during QS are not only unaccompanied by REMs, but they also occur synchronously with sleep spindles, a hallmark of QS. As QS-related twitching increases with age, sleep spindle rate also increases along the sensorimotor strip. The emerging synchrony between subcortically generated twitches and cortical oscillations suggests the development of functional connectivity among distant sensorimotor structures, with potential implications for detecting and explaining atypical developmental trajectories.

Automated summary

Twitching during sleep is important for the development of the sensorimotor system, and the relationship between twitching and sleep spindles strengthens with age.