Sleep quality and its effect on event related potential P300 in adolescents with and without sleep disturbances

The present study aimed: (i) to investigate the sleep quality and cortical arousal (ERP P300) in adolescents with and without sleep disturbances, and (ii) to examine whether P300 vary as a function of quality of the previous night's sleep in sleep disturbed adolescents and to compare the findings with healthy controls.

Fifteen sleep disturbed adolescents and 15 age-matched controls were recruited. Participants filled 10 days of sleep logs to identify their good (GN) and bad nights (BN). GN and BN were scored as a measure of sleep efficiency (SE), with nights having greater SE defined as GN and nights with lower SE scores labelled as BN. Afterwards, subjects were summoned to the lab for recording ERP P300 once after a night of good sleep (GN) and once after a night of bad sleep (BN).

The findings demonstrate that sleep disturbed adolescents exhibited poorer quality of sleep than controls. The ERP P300 also revealed significant difference in participants with and without sleep disturbance. Moreover, the P300 amplitude was higher and the latency was shorter after a GN in sleep disturbed as well as in controls, however, the values were better for adolescents without disturbed sleep. Similarly, amplitude and latency of P300 was lower and longer, respectively, after a BN in both the groups, however, participants with sleep disturbance demonstrated very penurious scores for amplitude and latency than the controls.

Adolescents with sleep disturbance have poorer sleep quality and ERP characteristics than their healthy counterparts. Moreover, the quality of the previous night sleep determines cortical arousal in both sleep disturbed and healthy controls.