Title
Hippocampal sleep spindles preceding neocortical sleep onset in humans.
Abstract
The coexistence of regionally dissociated brain activity patterns –with some brain areas being active while other already showing sleep signs– may occur throughout all vigilance states including the transition from wakefulness to sleep and may account for both physiological as well as pathological events. These dissociated electrophysiological states are often characterized by multi-domain cognitive and behavioral impairment such as amnesia for events immediately preceding sleep. By performing simultaneous intracerebral electroencephalographic recordings from hippocampal as well as from distributed neocortical sites in neurosurgical patients, we observed that sleep spindles consistently occurred in the hippocampus several minutes before sleep onset. In addition, hippocampal spindle detections consistently preceded neocortical events, with increasing delays along the cortical antero-posterior axis. Our results support the notion that wakefulness and sleep are not mutually exclusive states, but rather part of a continuum resulting from the complex interaction between diffuse neuromodulatory systems and intrinsic properties of the different thalamocortical modules. This interaction may account for the occurrence of dissociated activity across different brain structures characterizing both physiological and pathological conditions.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.10.031
NeuroImage
Keywords
Field
DocType
Hippocampus,Sleep spindles,Stereo-EEG,Wake-to-sleep transition
Developmental psychology,Sleep spindle,Sleep onset,Neuroscience,Unihemispheric slow-wave sleep,Non-rapid eye movement sleep,Psychology,K-complex,Neuroscience of sleep,Wakefulness,Hippocampal formation
Journal
Volume
ISSN
Citations 
86
1053-8119
5
PageRank 
References 
Authors
1.26
1
10
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
S Sarasso1132.25
Paola Proserpio281.71
Andrea Pigorini3122.88
Fabio Moroni4143.89
Michele Ferrara5194.42
Luigi De Gennaro6214.92
Fabrizio De Carli7143.89
Giorgio Lo Russo8385.89
Marcello Massimini96014.56
Lino Nobili10207.45