High Flying and Decompression Treatment of Whooping-cough

Abstract

Affective experiences are central not only to our waking life but also to rapid eye movement (REM) sleep dreams. Despite our increasing understanding of the neural correlates of dreaming, we know little about the neural correlates of dream affect. Frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) is considered a marker of affective states and traits as well as affect regulation in the waking state. Here, we explored whether FAA during REM sleep and during evening resting wakefulness is related to affective experiences in REM sleep dreams. Electroencephalography (EEG) recordings were obtained from seventeen human participants (7 men) who spent two nights in the sleep laboratory. Participants were awakened five minutes after the onset of every REM stage after which they provided a dream report and rated their dream affect. Two-minute pre-awakening EEG segments were analyzed. Additionally, eight minutes of evening pre-sleep and morning post-sleep EEG were recorded during resting wakefulness. Mean spectral power in the alpha band (8-13 Hz) and corresponding FAA were calculated over the frontal (F4-F3) sites. Results showed that FAA during REM sleep, and during evening resting wakefulness, predicted ratings of dream Anger. This suggests that individuals with greater alpha power in the right frontal hemisphere may be less able to regulate (i.e., inhibit) strong affective states, such as Anger, in dreams. Additionally, FAA was positively correlated across wakefulness and REM sleep. Together, these findings imply that FAA may serve as a neural correlate of affect regulation not only in the waking but also in the dreaming state. <b>SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT</b> We experience emotions not only during wakefulness but also during dreaming. Despite our increasing understanding of the neural correlates of dreaming, we know little about the neural correlates of dream emotions. Here we used electroencephalography to explore how frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA)—the relative difference in alpha power between the right and left frontal cortical areas that is associated with emotional processing and emotion regulation in wakefulness—is related to dream emotions. We show that individuals with greater FAA (i.e., greater right-sided alpha power) during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and during evening wakefulness, experience more anger in dreams. FAA may thus reflect the ability to regulate emotions not only in the waking but also in the dreaming state.