Evoked electrical and cerebral vascular responses during sleep and following sleep deprivation

Neuronal activity elicits vascular dilation, delivering additional blood and metabolites to the activated region. With increasing neural activity, vessels stretch and may become less compliant. Most functional imaging studies assume that limits to vascular expansion are not normally reached except under pathological conditions, with the possibility that metabolism could outpace supply. However, we previously demonstrated that evoked hemodynamic responses were larger during quiet sleep when compared to both waking and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, suggesting that high basal activity during wake may elicit blunted evoked hemodynamic responses due to vascular expansion limits. We hypothesized that extended brain activity through sleep deprivation will further dilate blood vessels and exacerbate the blunted evoked hemodynamic responses observed during wake, and dampen responses in subsequent sleep. We measured evoked electrical and hemodynamic responses from rats using auditory clicks (0.5s, 10 Hz, 2-13s random ISIs) for 1h following 2, 4, or 6h of sleep deprivation. Time-of-day matched controls were recorded continuously for 7h. Within quiet sleep periods following deprivation, evoked response potential (ERP) amplitude did not differ; however, the evoked vascular response was smaller with longer sleep deprivation periods. These results suggest that prolonged neural activity periods through sleep deprivation may diminish vascular compliance as indicated by the blunted vascular response. Subsequent sleep may allow vessels to relax, restoring their ability to deliver blood. These results also suggest that severe sleep deprivation or chronic sleep disturbances could push the vasculature to critical limits, leading to metabolic deficit and the potential for tissue trauma.