Early components of the averaged electroencephalic response to constant level clicks during rapid eye movement sleep.

Abstract

The early components of the averaged electroencephalic response (AER) were elicited by click stimuli from each of four subject during completed night of nature sleep. Clicks were presented from a loudspeaker 50 dB above the subject's voluntary threshold at a rate of 4.5/sec continuously throughout the night. Response obtained during sleep stages 2, 3, and 4 were pooled and compared to the responses obtained during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep for each subject. Statistically significant peak-to-peak amplitude difference scores were only obtained for the Pa and Nb peaks. The largest differences, with shorter REM latencies in both cases, were 1.5 msec for Pa and 4.5 msec for Nb. Thus a similar pattern for the early components of the AER was found during REM and non-REM (NREM) sleep. Therefore, the clinical usefulness of the early components was not diminished during stage REM sleep.