FACTORS INFLUENCING BRAIN POTENTIALS DURING SLEEP

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Abstract
Minute to minute fluctuations in brain potentials through the night are superimposed on a gradual trend from hr. to hr. This latter is compared with the sleep stages described by others. The potentials are present simultaneously over much of the cortex. In sequence, the patterns are [alpha] + [DELTA], [DELTA], null, intermittent [alpha]. During increasing sleep depth, early in the night, [DELTA] waves appear before a waves are gone; while later, during diminishing depth of sleep, the [DELTA] disappear before the a return. In other respects also, potentials of the rising sleep phase do not mirror those of the falling phase. Subjective reports of sleep and dreams can be correlated with potential patterns, sometimes quite sharply. Movement is accompanied by a shift of potentials towards lighter sleep in 9/10 of the present cases, by no change the remaining times. Hypersomnia, due to prolonged voluntary insomnia or to narcolepsy, is associated with [DELTA] waves at relatively higher levels of consciousness than in normal sleep. A stimulant drug, benzedrine, diminishes [DELTA] waves; a depressant, alcohol, enhances them. These findings are discussed in relation to theories of sleep and the sources of cortical potentials.

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