The REM - NREM Sleep Cycle: Renewal Process or Periodically Driven Process?

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Abstract
Summary:The question of the serial dependence of successive REM - NREM sleep cycles was examined. The experiments were performed in two different settings: 309 sleep episodes of 11 healthy young sleepers (age range, 20- 36 years) were recorded under entrained conditions in the sleep laboratory; 5 of these subjects also slept in an isolation unit (underground apartment) with free-running sleep-wake cycles for a total of 107 sleep episodes. The covariances between the first three REM - NREM cycles were computed using an intraindividual cross-night approach. Significant negative covariances were observed. This result confirmed the assumption of serial dependencies between successive REM - NREM cycles. These data agree with the features of a periodically driven process and are incompatible with the alternatively hypothesized renewal model. The periodically driven process is similar in concept to the basic rest-activity cycle.

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