Cognition, Behavior, and Memory
Author: Nerea Herrero | Email: neherrero@itba.edu.ar
Nerea Herrero 1°, Juan Pablo Touron 1°, Maria Florencia Coldeira 1°, Franco Veloso Sinanian 1°, Natasha Lourdes Nasra 1°, Luis Ignacio Brusco 2°, Rodrigo Ramele 3°, Cecilia Forcato 1°
1° Laboratorio de Sueño y Memoria, Departamento de Ciencias de la Vida, Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA).
2° Centro de Neuropsiquiatría y Neurología de la Conducta – CENECON, Facultad de Ciencias Médicas, Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA).
3° Laboratorio de Neurotrónica, Departamento de Informática, Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA).
4°
Introduction. Sleep paralysis is a REM sleep parasomnia characterized by the inability to perform voluntary movements while the person feels awake and conscious of the surrounding environment. Recently, it has been demonstrated that it is possible to determine the exact onset of a sleep paralysis episode by instructing the dreamer in advance to perform a pre-agreed eye movement, which can be observed in a polysomnography recording. In this study, we present the results obtained from the analysis of the signal obtained during a sleep paralysis episode.
Materials and Methods. The participant was instructed to move their eyes from left to right three times when experiencing a sleep paralysis episode. A standard polysomnography was conducted, and the obtained signal was subjected to bandpass filters from 0.16 to 65Hz, a 50Hz Notch filter, and ICA filters. Spectral power density was analyzed in frequency bands of interest during sleep paralysis episodes, normal REM sleep, wakefulness, and NREM stage 1 sleep.
Results. During the episode, there was an increase in power density in the alpha (8-13Hz), beta (15-30Hz), and gamma (45-65Hz) frequency bands compared to normal REM sleep. On the other hand, power density during the episode was similar to NREM stage 1 sleep in the theta (4-9Hz), alpha (8-13Hz), and beta (15-30Hz) frequency bands. In comparison to wakefulness, power density during the episode was lower in the alpha (8-13Hz), beta (15-30Hz), and gamma (45-65Hz) frequency band