Event-Related Potential Study of Recovery of Consciousness during Forced Awakening from Slow-Wave Sleep and Rapid Eye Movement Sleep.
Krystsina Liaukovich, Sergei Sazhin, Pavel Bobrov, Yulia Ukraintseva
International journal of molecular sciences October 4, 2022 DOI: 10.3390/ijms231911785 via PubMed
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractAwakening from rapid eye movement (REM) sleep leads to faster recovery of consciousness compared to slow-wave sleep (SWS). In a study with healthy volunteers, it was observed that motor responses to auditory stimuli resumed within 20 seconds after alpha brain activity began during REM, versus 25 seconds for SWS. Notably, pre-attentive processing of stimuli occurred earlier during REM. This indicates that the presence of alpha activity alone does not guarantee awareness or motor response, shedding light on sleep disorders and consciousness dissociation.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Healthy volunteers |
| Keywords | Erp Rem Sws Awakening Awareness |
| Citations | 9 |
| Key finding | Alpha activity alone is insufficient for conscious awareness or motor responses; these recover only after a delay of about 20–25 seconds following alpha onset. |
Abstract
This work aimed to study the recovery of consciousness during forced awakening from slow-wave sleep (SWS) and rapid eye movement sleep (REM) in healthy volunteers. To track the changes in the degree of awareness of the stimuli during the transition to wakefulness, event-related potentials (ERPs) and motor responses (MR) in the auditory local-global paradigm were analyzed. The results show that during awakening from both SWS and REM, first, alpha-activity restores in the EEG, and only 20 and 25 s (for REM and SWS awakenings, respectively) after alpha onset MR to target stimuli recovers. During REM awakening, alpha-rhythm, MR, and conscious awareness of stimuli recover faster than during SWS awakening. Moreover, pre-attentive processing of local irregularities emerges earlier, even before alpha-rhythm onset, while during SWS awakening, the local effect we registered only after alpha restoration. The P300-like response both on global and local irregularities was found only when accurate MR was restored. Thus, the appearance in EEG predominating alpha-activity is insufficient either for conscious awareness of external stimuli or for generating MR to them. This work may help to understand the pathophysiology of sleep disorders well as conditions characterized by the dissociation between behavior and various aspects of consciousness.