Absence epilepsy in rats is reduced by deprivation of REM sleep

Effects of deprivation of REM sleep on spontaneous occurring spike wave complexes in the WAG/Rij rat strain were studied by means of the pendulum and platform technique. During the deprivation period, which lasted three days, variable results were obtained. While a suppression of the total duration of epileptic activity was found for the pendulum deprived animals, no such evident effect was detected in the platform deprived rats. Probably, instrumental effects are responsible for these differential results. On the other hand, subsequent to deprivation, a prolonged reduction of the total duration of spike wave activity was seen in both deprived groups. While it is known that under normal circumstances absences only occur during low levels of arousal and because there is evidence that deprivation of REM sleep has arousal increasing properties, it is suggested that the reduction in epilepsy is caused by an increase of arousal. This result also implies that, at least in the case of absence epilepsy, REM sleep deprivation is not the crucial factor for the epilepsy provoking effect of total sleep deprivation.