Sensory responses in neocortex are strongly modulated by changes in brain state, such as those observed between sleep stages or attentional levels. However, the specific effects of network state changes on the spatiotemporal properties of sensory responses are poorly understood. The slow oscillation, which is observed in neocortex under ketamine-xylazine anesthesia and is characterized by alter...

Physical activity (PA) helps to prevent osteoporosis, but older women are often sedentary. This study used a pre-post randomized controlled design to evaluate a 12-week exercise education intervention program based on the stages of change (SoC) and processes of change from the transtheoretical change model (TTM) to improve adherence with strength and balance training recommendations at levels s...

Excessive fragmentary myoclonus during sleep consists of high amounts of brief twitch-like movements occurring asynchronously and asymmetrically in different body areas and has been reported to occur in association with a number of sleep disorders. It was analyzed using a new technique of quantification, the fragmentary myoclonus index (FMI). The FMI exhibited high rates in all stages of sleep ...

In this paper we report a detection method for different sleep stages and it is based on a single-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) system. The system is simple and can be easily setup in homes to perform sleep EEG recording, overnight sleep EEG automatic staging, and sleep quality evaluation. EEG data of 14 sleeping subjects were recorded through the entire night. All subjects were within the...

Breathing patterns early and late in the night, at the same sleep stage, were compared in six healthy subjects and 15 adults with nocturnal asthma, to try to identify changes of overnight bronchoconstriction, and breathing patterns at different sleep stages, to see whether there were changes related to sleep stages that were indicative of bronchoconstriction. Despite an average 31% fall in FEV1...

This review demonstrates that stress is closely related to impaired sleep in cross-sectional studies. In particular, the anticipation of high demands or effort the next day seems important. Sleep recordings show that stress is associated with shortened sleep, fragmentation, and possibly a reduction in sleep stages 3 and 4. Shortened or disturbed sleep causes increases in levels of traditional s...

We analyze complexity of sleep-EEG-signals using methods based on Higuchi’s fractal dimension and of the signal and a new symbolic method applied to signal’s derivative. We demonstrate that these methods may be helpful in diagnosis of sleep disorders the fractal dimension method differentiate between sleep stages while the symbolic method may differentiate between healthy subject and insomniacs...

OBJECTIVES The prevalence of insomnia is very high in our society. Although pharmacological treatment of insomnia is available, most hypnotics have been shown to alter sleep architecture and have many adverse effects. Gabapentin was originally designed for antiepileptic therapy; however, some studies reported that its use increases slow-wave sleep in healthy volunteers or patients. Our goal was...

OBJECTIVE This study examined associations between alexithymia and objective characteristics of sleep (latencies, stages, and amount and patterning of REM sleep) that may contribute to subjective reports of poor sleep quality and impaired dream recall among alexithymic people. METHODS Fifty healthy, normally sleeping adults from the community completed the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale an...

BACKGROUND Arousal in response to increased airflow resistance during sleep, especially rapid eye movement sleep (REM), could be an important protective mechanism against asphyxia. METHODS The arousal response to the application of an external inspiratory resistance of 25 cm H2O/l/s was determined during REM and non-REM sleep in ten healthy men. RESULTS The number of arousals occurring with...