Interaction between sleep EEG and ECG signals during and after obstructive sleep apnea events with or without arousals

Abstract

This is a preliminary attempt to directly investigate the interactions of sleep EEG and ECG signals during normal, OSA breathing event and events following its termination with or without arousal in non-REM(NREM) and REM sleep stages. ECG and EEG signals were collected from 10 patients with OSA and 5 healthy subjects. Coherence between two signals (CoherenceECGEEG) over different frequency bands(range:0∼40Hz) were calculated for normal breathing events, OSA events and events following OSA terminations (with/without arousals) in NREM as well as REM sleep. In normal breathing events, overall CoherenceECG-EEG in REM sleep is higher than that in NREM sleep. Significant (p≪0.01) differences of CoherenceECG-EEG between OSA events with and without arousals were found in NREM sleep over 0.5–25 Hz bands but in REM sleep over 3.0–12 Hz. This research could be useful in understanding cardiac dysfunction in sleep apnoea patient.