Discovery of key whole-brain transitions and dynamics during human wakefulness and non-REM sleep

CABRAL, J.; TAGLIAZUCCHI, E.; DECO, G.; KRINGELBACH, M. L.; VIDAURRE, D.; NIELSEN, S. F. V.; VUUST, P.; VAN SOMEREN, E.; STEVNER, A. B. A.; RAPUANO, K.; LAUFS, H.; WOOLRICH, M. W.

NATURE COMMUNICATIONS

Nature Publishing Group

Año: 2019 vol. 10

2041-1723

The modern understanding of sleep is based on the classification of sleep into stages definedby their electroencephalography (EEG) signatures, but the underlying brain dynamics remainunclear. Here we aimed to move significantly beyond the current state-of-the-art descriptionof sleep, and in particular to characterise the spatiotemporal complexity of whole-brainnetworks and state transitions during sleep. In order to obtain the most unbiased estimate ofhow whole-brain network states evolve through the human sleep cycle, we used a Markoviandata-driven analysis of continuous neuroimaging data from 57 healthy participants fallingasleep during simultaneous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and EEG. ThisHidden Markov Model (HMM) facilitated discovery of the dynamic choreography betweendifferent whole-brain networks across the wake-non-REM sleep cycle. Notably, our resultsreveal key trajectories to switch within and between EEG-based sleep stages, while highlighting the heterogeneities of stage N1 sleep and wakefulness before and after sleep.