Abstract

Sleep slow waves are studied for their role in brain plasticity, homeostatic regulation and their changes during aging. Here, we address the possibility that two types of slow waves co-exist in humans. Thirty young and 29 older adults underwent a night of polysomnographic recordings. Using the Transition frequency, slow waves with a slow transition (slow switchers) and with a fast transition (fast switchers) were discovered. Slow switchers had a high EEG connectivity along their depolarization transition while fast switchers had a lower connectivity dynamic and dissipated faster during the night. Aging was associated with lower temporal dissipation of sleep pressure in slow and fast switchers and lower EEG connectivity at the microscale of the oscillations, suggesting a decreased flexibility in the connectivity network of older individuals. Our findings show that two different types of slow waves with possible distinct underlying functions, coexist in the slow wave spectrum.

Data availability

All codes and transformed data used for all the analyses and most specifically to produce all of the figures of the paper can be freely accessible using this link : https://github.com/jmlina/Slow_Wave_Switchers. As requested, the full software licensing will be provided during the review process. We will follow the guidelines you have mentioned as soon as people in charge will be back. All the process will be done for the final version.This information and link was also added in a new section at the end of the paper under "Additional data files".Dataset can not be shared as participants did not give consent for data sharing.For the raw data, a request needs to be formulated to the ethic committee of the Hôpital de Sacré-Coeur de Montréal, as raw data of human participants cannot be made public under Québec's law.The data provided will be anonymized and some will be processed. Researchers who request access to the data will need to provide their research protocol and their IRB approval for this protocol. The documents will be studied by the owner of the database (Julie Carrier) who will then also submit to her institution's REB for authorization to share the data. Data requests should be addressed to:Julie Carrier (PI): julie.carrier.1@umontreal.caSonia Frenette (in cc) : sonia.frenette@umontreal.ca

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Maude Bouchard

    psychology, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada
    For correspondence
    maude.bouchard.1@umontreal.ca
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Jean-Marc Lina

    Mathematics, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Pierre-Olivier Gaudreault

    Psychology, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Alexandre Lafrenière

    Psychology, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Jonathan Dubé

    Psychology, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Nadia Gosselin

    Psychology, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Julie Carrier

    Psychology, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada
    For correspondence
    julie.carrier.1@umontreal.ca
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-9863-4436

Funding

Canadian Institutes of Health Research (Vanier scholarship)

  • Maude Bouchard

Canadian Institutes of Health Research (190750)

  • Julie Carrier

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: The protocol was approved by the ethics committee of the Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal and performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations. Participants provided informed consent and received financial compensation for their participation. (CMER-RNQ 08-136 08-002).

Copyright

© 2021, Bouchard et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 1,806
    views
  • 242
    downloads
  • 18
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Maude Bouchard
  2. Jean-Marc Lina
  3. Pierre-Olivier Gaudreault
  4. Alexandre Lafrenière
  5. Jonathan Dubé
  6. Nadia Gosselin
  7. Julie Carrier
(2021)
Sleeping at the Switch
eLife 10:e64337.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.64337

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.64337

Further reading

    1. Neuroscience
    Moritz F Wurm, Doruk Yiğit Erigüç
    Research Article

    Recognizing goal-directed actions is a computationally challenging task, requiring not only the visual analysis of body movements, but also analysis of how these movements causally impact, and thereby induce a change in, those objects targeted by an action. We tested the hypothesis that the analysis of body movements and the effects they induce relies on distinct neural representations in superior and anterior inferior parietal lobe (SPL and aIPL). In four fMRI sessions, participants observed videos of actions (e.g. breaking stick, squashing plastic bottle) along with corresponding point-light-display (PLD) stick figures, pantomimes, and abstract animations of agent–object interactions (e.g. dividing or compressing a circle). Cross-decoding between actions and animations revealed that aIPL encodes abstract representations of action effect structures independent of motion and object identity. By contrast, cross-decoding between actions and PLDs revealed that SPL is disproportionally tuned to body movements independent of visible interactions with objects. Lateral occipitotemporal cortex (LOTC) was sensitive to both action effects and body movements. These results demonstrate that parietal cortex and LOTC are tuned to physical action features, such as how body parts move in space relative to each other and how body parts interact with objects to induce a change (e.g. in position or shape/configuration). The high level of abstraction revealed by cross-decoding suggests a general neural code supporting mechanical reasoning about how entities interact with, and have effects on, each other.

    1. Neuroscience
    Gyeong Hee Pyeon, Hyewon Cho ... Yong Sang Jo
    Research Article Updated

    Recent studies suggest that calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) neurons in the parabrachial nucleus (PBN) represent aversive information and signal a general alarm to the forebrain. If CGRP neurons serve as a true general alarm, their activation would modulate both passive nad active defensive behaviors depending on the magnitude and context of the threat. However, most prior research has focused on the role of CGRP neurons in passive freezing responses, with limited exploration of their involvement in active defensive behaviors. To address this, we examined the role of CGRP neurons in active defensive behavior using a predator-like robot programmed to chase mice. Our electrophysiological results revealed that CGRP neurons encode the intensity of aversive stimuli through variations in firing durations and amplitudes. Optogenetic activation of CGRP neurons during robot chasing elevated flight responses in both conditioning and retention tests, presumably by amplifying the perception of the threat as more imminent and dangerous. In contrast, animals with inactivated CGRP neurons exhibited reduced flight responses, even when the robot was programmed to appear highly threatening during conditioning. These findings expand the understanding of CGRP neurons in the PBN as a critical alarm system, capable of dynamically regulating active defensive behaviors by amplifying threat perception, and ensuring adaptive responses to varying levels of danger.