Extra-auditory effects of noise in laboratory animals: the relationship between noise and sleep

Noise has both auditory and extra-auditory effects. Some of the most deleterious extra-auditory effects of noise are those leading to sleep disturbances. These disturbances seem to be related to both endogenous (physical parameters) and exogenous (sex, age) factors of noise. Despite correlative relations between noise level and awakenings, the scientific community has not reached consensus regarding a specific action of these factors on the different sleep stages. In animal research, 2 complementary main fields of research exist. One is focused on the positive modulation of sleep by repeated tone stimulation. The other concerns noise-related sleep disturbances. The few studies that have investigated noise-related sleep disturbances suggest the following conclusions. First, sleep disturbances are greater upon exposure to environmental noise, whose frequency spectrum is characterized by high and ultrasonic sounds, than white noise. Second, unpredictability and pattern of noise events are responsible for extractions from both SWS and PS. Third, chronic exposure to noise permanently reduces and fragments sleep. Finally, in chronic noise exposure, an inter-individual variability in SWS deficits is observed and correlated to a psychobiological profile related to an incapability to face stressful situations. Based on results from other research, acute noise-related sleep perturbations could result from an imbalance in the sleep-wake cycle in favor of arousing ascending systems. Chronic noise-related sleep disturbances may arise due to imbalance of the sleep-wake cycle and malfunctioning of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis which may both contribute to the development of pathology.