Citation

Campbell IG, Zhang ZY, Grimm KJ. Sleep 2023; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Publisher Associated Professional Sleep Societies)

DOI

10.1093/sleep/zsad071

PMID

36916319

Abstract

STUDY OBJECTIVES: Limiting spindle activity via sleep restriction could explain some of the negative cognitive effects of sleep loss in adolescents. The current study evaluates how sleep restriction affects sleep spindle number, incidence, amplitude, duration, and wave frequency and tests whether sleep restriction effects on spindles change across the years of adolescence. The study determines whether sleep restriction effects on daytime sleepiness, vigilance, and cognition are related to changes in sleep spindles.

METHODS: In each year of this three year longitudinal study, 77 participants, ranging in age from 10 to 16 years, each completed three different time in bed (TIB) schedules: 7, 8.5 or 10 hours in bed for four consecutive nights. A computer algorithm detected and analyzed sleep spindles in night 4 central and frontal electroencephalogram (EEG).

OBJECTIVE and subjective daytime sleepiness and cognition were evaluated on the day following the fourth night.

RESULTS: For 7h vs. 10h TIB average all-night frontal and central spindle counts were reduced by 35% and 32% respectively. Reducing TIB also significantly decreased spindle incidence in the first 5h of NREM sleep, produced small but significant reductions in spindle amplitude, and had little to no effect on spindle duration and spindle wave frequency. Sleep restriction effects did not change with age. The reductions in spindle count and incidence were related to daytime sleepiness on the following day but were not related to working memory.

CONCLUSION: The sleep loss effects on daytime functioning in adolescents is partially mediated by reduced sleep spindles impacting daytime sleepiness.

Language: en

Keywords

adolescence; electroencephalogram; sleepiness; maturation; sleep loss; sleep spindles