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Updated: May 8, 2026

Quantifying Infra-slow Dynamics of Spectral Power and Heart Rate in Sleeping Mice
Published on: August 2, 2017
Emergence of sensory patterns during sleep highlights differential dynamics of REM and non-REM sleep stages
Michal Ramot1, Lior Fisch, Ido Davidesco
1Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel, Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel, EEG and Epilepsy Unit, Department of Neurology, and Functional Neurosurgery Unit, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv 64239, Israel, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel, and Department of Neurosurgery, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095.
Abstract:
Despite the profound reduction in conscious awareness associated with sleep, sensory cortex remains highly active during the different sleep stages, exhibiting complex interactions between different cortical sites. The potential functional significance of such spatial patterns and how they change between different sleep stages is presently unknown. In this electrocorticography study of human patients, we examined this question by studying spatial patterns of activity (broadband gamma power) that emerge during sleep (sleep patterns) and comparing them to the functional organization of sensory cortex that is activated by naturalistic stimuli during the awake state. Our results show a high correlation (p < 10(-4), permutation test) between the sleep spatial patterns and the functional organization found during wakefulness. Examining how the sleep patterns changed through the night highlighted a stage-specific difference, whereby the repertoire of such patterns was significantly larger during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep compared with non-REM stages. These results reveal that intricate spatial patterns of sensory functional organization emerge in a stage-specific manner during sleep.
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