Assessment of the EEG complexity during activations from sleep

Abstract The present study quantitatively analyzes the EEG characteristics during activations (Act) that occur during NREM sleep, and constitute elements of sleep microstructure (i.e. the Cyclic Alternating Pattern). The fractal dimension (FD) and the sample entropy (SampEn) measures were used to study the different sleep stages and the Act that build up the sleep structure. Polysomnographic recordings from 10 good sleepers were analyzed. The complexity indexes of the Act were compared with the non-activation (NAct) periods during non-REM sleep. In addition, complexity measures among the different Act subtypes (A1, A2 and A3) were analyzed. A3 presented a quite similar complexity independently of the sleep stage, while A1 and A2 showed higher complexity in light sleep than during deep sleep. The current results suggest that Act present a hierarchic complexity between subtypes A3 (higher), A2 (intermediate) and A1 (lower) in all sleep stages.