Analysis and Modeling of the Dynamics of Sleep Stage Transitions in Humans

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K16416
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Developmental mechanisms and the body works
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Kishi Akifumi 東京大学, 大学院教育学研究科(教育学部), 助教 (70748946)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 睡眠 / 睡眠段階遷移 / 個人差 / 超日リズム / モデリング / 加齢

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, we found that (1) in healthy young adults, sleep stage transitions and ultradian rhythm of sleep exhibited significantly stable and robust interindividual differences, suggesting that mechanisms underlying the dynamics of sleep stage transitions may be considerably trait-like, (2) in healthy sleepers, sleep continuity was positively correlated with sleep duration, suggesting that mechanisms of sleep continuity may lead to individual differences in sleep duration, (3) older subjects showed decreased continuity of slow-wave sleep compared to younger subjects, and decreased slow-wave activity was associated with impaired spatial navigational memory performance, and (4) hypnograms generated by 2nd-order stage transition probabilities and stage-specific survival time function could reproduce the central position of the distribution of REM-onset intervals, suggesting that mechanism governing sleep stage transitions underlies the generation of the ultradian rhythm of sleep.

Free Research Field

睡眠科学、教育生理学、身体教育学