Relation of sleep related events and spontaneous arousals during slow wave & REM sleep in healthy individuals

Background & purpose: Focussed studies about association between arousals and phasic sleep events are few.We analyzed the association between arousals and sleep events during slow wave (N3) & REM (R).Methodology: Overnight PSG recording of 30 healthy adults were analyzed using AASM manual (2007).Occurrence of various sleep events and arousals were analyzed.Results: There were 405 arousals, only 45 were de novo.In N3, sleep events associated with arousals included PLM-110 (88.7%); sleep spindles-48 (38.7%); desaturation-4 (3.2%); snore-13 (10.5%); and apnea-3 (2.4%).During R, sleep events associated with arousals included PLM-203 (72.2%); rapid eye movement-99 (35.2%); snore-53 (18.9%); desaturation-2 (0.7%); and apnea-12 (4.3%).Number of arousals in N3 and R that occurred de novo, and with single and multiple events were: a) N3-de novo 9 (7.3%); single event-61 (49.2%) and multiple events-54 (43.5%); b) REM: de novo-36 (12.8%); single event-132 (47.0%) and multiple event-113 (40.2%).Conclusions: Majority of arousals (88.9%) in normal individuals are associated with phasic sleep events.Such studies might unravel the understanding of arousals in sleep and its mechanism.