Behavioral Control of Respiration in Sleep and Sleepiness Due to Signal‐Induced Sleep Fragmentation

Abstract

The effects of sleep fragmentation on behavioral control of sleeping respiration and on daytime sleepiness were investigated in 20 college students. All were polygraphically monitored both during nighttime sleep and during daytime naps. Ten experimental subjects were informed while awake that tones would be presented to them during nighttime sleep. Their task was to terminate the tones by taking a deep breath. Half of the subjects first received tones every 4 min; the other half received them every 8 min. After 4 consecutive nights subjects received 3 days off and conditions were reversed for 4 more consecutive nights. Tones started at 45dB and, in the absence of a response, increased 10dB every 10 seconds up to 95dB. Control subjects (N = 10) did not receive tones. The absolute number of arousals to tones was greater but the percentage of arousals was lower under the 4‐min condition. Full awakenings occurred infrequently. Probability of making a breathing response remained high across days for both fragmentation conditions, but latency to respond was shorter and probability higher under the 8‐min condition. Sleep fragmentation, whether “frequent” (4‐min) or “infrequent” (8‐min), did not induce greater daytime sleepiness than did the nonfragmentation control condition, and sleepiness did not differ between the two experimental conditions. Implications for developing behavioral techniques for treating sleep‐related breathing disorders are discussed.

The effect of sleep fragmentation on daytime function.

“…This is known as the sleep continuity theory. Drawing together results from Badia et al (1985), Magee et al (1987), Levine et al (1987) and Bonnet (1986b) 4 minutes was suggested as that minimum. These differences cannot be explained by differences in the techniques used to assess daytime sleepiness as the studies of Magee et al (1987) and Levine et al (1987) tested daytime sleepiness with the MSLT.…”

“…As these studies (Bonnet 1986b, Downey andare used as evidence for the sleep continuity theory these conlcusions may be based on studies with low power. Badia et al (1985) and Magee et al (1987) studied more subjects, 20 and 16 subjects respectively, however these were split into 2 groups and a parallel study design used to compare different sleep fragmentation conditions. Therefore there were only 10 (Badia et al 1985) and 8 (Magee et al 1987) subjects in each sleep fragmentation condition again suggesting that their conclusions are based on results from studies which may have inadequate power.…”

EEG Arousals in Normal Sleep: Variations Induced by Total and Selective Slow-wave Sleep Deprivation

“…Different evidence suggests the existence of a nonlinear relation between EEG arousals and stage 1 amount: a) the present failure to show a covariation between them during baseline nights; b) the positive correlation found during our recovery nights, characterized by a decrease of EEG arousals; and c) a similar positive correlation found during the experimentally fragmented sleep of normal subjects, characterized by an increase of arousals. 15,16 This nonlinear covariation is characterized by a weak or absent relation of EEG arousal with normal amount of stage 1, and a stronger one when stage 1 is increased or decreased. Coherent with this interpretation seem to be the results by Boselli et al 7 : the inspection of their means on arousal indices across age groups (and respective sleep parameters) indicates that the significant increase of arousal in elderly subjects is paralleled by an increase in stage 1 duration, while the other age groups, not presenting altered stage 1 duration and arousal indices, do not show any covariation.…”

Does sleep fragmentation impact recuperation?A review and reanalysis

“…In fact, Bonnet (1986a) found that next‐day mean sleep latency was not significantly different between a group whose sleep was fragmented every minute (and who obtained over 2 h of stage 1 sleep – just under 50% of that groups TST) and a group totally deprived of sleep for 64 h (2.9 and 2.6 min, respectively). In addition, other results show that recovery sleep following either sleep fragmentation or sleep restriction procedures is characterized by increased arousal thresholds (see Stepanski et al . 1987; Badia et al .…”