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slow (delta) wave sleep (stage 4)
Deep sleep. EEG dominated by delta waves.
Epidemiology:
- slow wave sleep is most prominent during childhood & decreases sharply at puberty
- after age 30, there is a progressive, nearly linear decline in slow wave sleep with age
- in young healthy adults, slow wave sleep predominates in the 1st 1/3 of night & comprises 15-25% of total nocturnal sleep
- in otherwise healthy elderly individuals, especially men, slow wave sleep may be completely absent
Physiology:
- prior sleep deprivation increases the intensity & amount of slow wave sleep
Pathology:
- disturbance in slow-wave sleep is implicated in cognitive impairment (disorder of working memory) in patients with Parkinson's disease [2]
- atrophy in the medial prefrontal cortex with normal aging leads to less slow-wave sleep, which impairs medial prefrontal cortex to hippocampus connectivity leaving episodic memory stuck in the hippocampus instead of being transformed into more-stable long-term memory [3]
- disruption of slow-wave activity leads to higher CSF A-beta & CSF tau [4]
Special laboratory:
- identifed by polysomnography
Related
delta sleep-inducing peptide
EEG delta rhythm (wave)
General
non-REM sleep
References
- Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, 14th ed.
Fauci et al (eds), McGraw-Hill Inc. NY, 1998, pg 153-154
- Scullin MK et al.
Nocturnal sleep enhances working memory training in
Parkinson's disease but not Lewy body dementia.
Brain 2012 Sep; 135:2789.
PMID: 22907117
- Mander BA et al.
Prefrontal atrophy, disrupted NREM slow waves and impaired
hippocampal-dependent memory in aging.
Nat Neurosci 2013 Jan 27
PMID: 23354332
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v16/n3/full/nn.3324.html
- Ju YS, Ooms SJ, Sutphen C, et al.
Slow wave sleep disruption increases cerebrospinal fluid
amyloid-beta levels.
Brain 2017 Aug; 140:2104
PMID: 28899014