Speaker
Description
Background:
Insomnia disorder has been associated with altered EEG dynamics during both slow-wave and REM sleep. The REM sleep instability hypothesis has recently emerged as a novel framework for understanding insomnia, though EEG studies remain limited. EEG complexity, which reflects the richness and variability of temporal brain activity, may provide new insights into the dynamic organization and informational content of sleep in ID. This study aimed to explore alterations in slow-wave and REM sleep in insomnia patients using EEG-based complexity metrics.
Methods:
Overnight polysomnographic recordings from 45 insomnia patients and 50 age- and sex-matched good sleepers were analyzed. EEG signals were corrected for EOG artifacts, and three mastoid-referenced channels (Fz, C3, C4) were selected. Objective sleep parameters were extracted. EEG complexity was quantified using two Lempel-Ziv compression approaches: (i) global thresholding across the entire night and (ii) local thresholding for each 30-second epoch. Exploratory statistical analyses used independent t-tests.
Results:
Using the locally thresholded Lempel-Ziv method, insomnia patients showed significantly higher EEG complexity during REM sleep compared to good sleepers, across all channels (p = 0.03) and specifically at Fz (p = 0.009). A trend toward significance also emerged at Fz during NREM sleep (p = 0.05).
Conclusion:
Although preliminary and exploratory, these findings suggest that EEG complexity, particularly within the REM sleep instability framework, may reveal neurophysiological mechanisms underlying insomnia. By detecting subtle alterations in brain dynamics, complexity metrics offer promising clinical and neuroscientific insights into the quality of restorative sleep and its impact on daytime functioning in insomnia.
| If you're submitting a symposium talk, what's the symposium title? | Innovative approaches to sleep and well-being: Methodological and research implications |
|---|---|
| If you're submitting a symposium, or a talk that is part of a symposium, is this a junior symposium? | Yes |
