Spontaneous sleep and induced arousal. A depth-electroencephalographic study

Although arousal effects from electric stimulation have been found in animals, reports of similar responses in humans have been uncommon. During depth electroencephalography in a 16-year-old boy for evaluation of intractable temporal lobe seizures, electric stimulation of a pair of contact leads located within the dorsal and medial portions of the thalamus but not within specific sensory nuclei produced unequivocal behavioral and electrographic arousals from spontaneous sleep. Lowvoltage stimuli were effective during non-REM and REM sleep. These findings verify the presence of a thalamic arousal system in the human.