Elsevier

Clinical Neurophysiology

Volume 111, Issue 9, 1 September 2000, Pages 1611-1619
Clinical Neurophysiology

Cardiac activation during arousal in humans: further evidence for hierarchy in the arousal response

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1388-2457(00)00363-1Get rights and content

Abstract

Objectives: One major subject of discussion in sleep studies is whether bursts of K-complexes (K-bursts) and delta waves (D-bursts), expressions of a subcortical arousal, truly reflect an arousal response during sleep. To address this question we studied the changes in heart rate (HR) during spontaneous arousals in healthy subjects.

Methods: Twenty-seven healthy adults were examined. Arousals were graded in 4 levels, including the standard definition of a microarousal (MA), phases of transitory activation (PAT), D-bursts and K-bursts. HR was analyzed for 10 beats before and 20 beats during arousal. EEG spectral analysis was performed for all types of arousals, including in the analysis the 20 s period preceding the actual event.

Results: Each type of arousal was associated with HR changes consisting of a tachycardia followed by a bradycardia. Changes were more pronounced during MA and PAT. Detailed analysis of the HR response showed that HR always increased before MA and PAT onset, associated with a rise in delta, theta and fast EEG activities, and suggesting a cerebral activation.

Conclusions: Our data suggest that such subcortical arousals represent a real arousal response inducing cardiac activation similar to that found during MA and PAT. During MA and PAT, a rise in HR appears before the onset of the actual arousal associated with an increase in EEG slow and fast activity. The link between EEG and HR variation during MA and PAT and the fluctuations in HR during subcortical arousal suggest a continuous spectrum in the arousal mechanisms, starting at the brainstem level and progressing to cortical areas.

Introduction

Current models of alertness regulation suggest that daytime sleepiness depends on the duration of prior sleep and on the presence of sleep fragmentation. Although sleep reduction produces an increase in sleepiness (Carskadon and Dement, 1982), several studies have shown that it is not so much the amount of sleep but the frequency of arousal that is important in the recovery functions of sleep (Williams et al., 1964, Stepanski et al., 1984, Bonnet, 1985, Bonnet, 1987, Philip et al., 1994, Roehrs et al., 1994). Evidence in favor of this hypothesis also comes from studies conducted in patients with sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea (OSAS) (Roehrs et al., 1989) or periodic leg movements (PLMS) (App et al., 1990), in whom arousal density is the best predictor of daytime somnolence.

When we consider the processing of arousal response in clinical studies, definition of what constitutes arousal is critical, and criteria of detection and scoring are still controversial. Many studies have focused on microarousals (MA) (American Sleep Disorders Association, 1992, Boselli et al., 1998) and phases of transitory activation (PAT) (Schieber et al., 1971, Collard et al., 1996) corresponding to the largest periodical component of arousal response in humans. They are characterized by a combination of EEG desynchronization, appearance of alpha and low voltage EEG fast rhythms, and tachycardia, and thus they translate a ‘cortical arousal response’ induced by endogenous or exogenous stimuli.

With the inclusion of more sophisticated methods of arousal detection, recent studies (Halasz and Ujszaszi, 1991, Halasz, 1993, Halasz, 1998) opened the discussion of whether synchronized EEG sleep patterns might represent a form of arousal response in humans. By application of auditory stimuli, the authors found that stimuli-induced arousals consisted of transient EEG patterns, i.e. K-complex or delta bursts, without subsequent EEG desynchronization and associated with autonomic activation. These events, called ‘subcortical or autonomic arousal’ (Pitson et al., 1994, Martin et al., 1996), are intrinsic components of human sleep, appearing spontaneously as phases A1 of the cyclic alternating pattern (CAP) (Terzano et al., 1985, Parrino et al., 1998) and expression of levels of greater or lesser arousal.

To understand the exact influence of ‘subcortical arousals’, one must answer the question ‘Do K- or delta bursts directly cause sleep disruption; and are K- and delta bursts primary forms of an arousal response?’ There is now evidence supporting the concept of a common component in both MA and subcortical arousals in the ability to protect sleep against exogenous and endogenous stimuli (Terzano et al., 1985, Halasz and Ujszaszi, 1991, Halasz, 1993). Responses to auditory stimulation in humans induce vasoconstriction (Williams et al., 1964), blood pressure variations (Rees et al., 1994), and increase in ventilation (Carley et al., 1996), concomitant with bursts of K-complexes or delta waves. Moreover, delta bursts occur in patients with upper airway resistance syndrome (Lofaso et al., 1998) and OSAS (Berry and Gleeson, 1997) as an arousal response to airflow limitation.

Despite these findings, there is still controversy as to whether subcortical arousals truly reflect an arousal response. The most straightforward empirical method to determine an arousal response is to determine if concomitant phenomena occur in motor or autonomic systems. Measuring heart rate variation during a transitory event is one such approach. If the hypothesis that subcortical events are an arousal response from sleep is correct, the HR variation found during these arousals should be the same as that occurring during MAs and PATs. This study was undertaken to characterize the phenomenon of heart rate variations as indicators of the type of arousal response, i.e. cortical and subcortical arousals, in healthy subjects. A second goal was to obtain a more precise characterization of the EEG activity by means of spectral analysis to see whether EEG changes undetected by visual scoring could be seen before arousal onset and affect the cardiac response.

Section snippets

Subjects

The subject sample was comprised of 27 healthy subjects, 10 men and 17 women, aged 28.8±9.7 years (range 19–55 years). Subjects underwent a medical evaluation, including medical, psychiatric and sleep history, and a physical examination. They had no life history of cardiac disorder, and all were in good medical health. None was using medication that could affect heart rate, blood pressure or sleep structure. All volunteers participated in a 3 night sleep protocol, with the first night used for

Polygraphic data and EEG arousal scoring

Details of sleep parameters and visual arousal scoring are given in Table 1. All subjects had polysomnographic parameters within normal limits for adults, and the 4 types of arousals were recorded in all patients. The total number of arousals, however, varied between subjects, with an average number of scored arousals of 269.5±48.0. MA represented 36.1% of the total events, and PAT 21.1%; 16.2% of arousals were defined as D-bursts, and 26.6% as K-bursts, occurring mostly in stage 2 and slow

Discussion

The main goal of the present study was to determine whether cardiac changes occur during subcortical arousal, that is, during K-complex and delta bursts, and whether the pattern of variation was similar to that found during cortical arousals, i.e. MA and PAT. Using HR variation over time we found a significant change in HR during K- and D-bursts consisting of a tachycardia followed by a bradycardia, reflecting the changes seen during MA and PAT but to a lesser degree. Moreover, during MA and

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr Helli Merica for stimulating discussion and Dr Robert Blois for providing the nocturnal recordings.

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