McNamara Frances, Lijowska Anna S, Thach Bradley T
Edward Mallinckrodt Department of Pediatrics/Newborn Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110, USA.
J Physiol. 2002 Jan 1;538(Pt 1):263-9. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2001.012507.
The infant arousal response involves subcortical and cortical responses occurring as a sequence of stereotyped behaviour regardless of the eliciting stimulus. The spontaneous activity of these responses during sleep, however, is uncertain. We examined the spontaneous arousal pattern in normal infants to determine the sequence of responses, and to examine their periodicity and the effects of sleep state. We performed a nap polysomnographic study on 10 normal infants between 2 and 10 weeks of age. Electroencephalographic and electro-oculographic activity, and respiratory airflow and movements were measured, and video recordings were made throughout each study. Different levels of arousal behaviour were examined. We found that spontaneous arousal activity occurred frequently and the majority of responses occurred as a sequence involving an augmented breath followed by a startle and then cortical arousal. Subcortical arousals as reflected by augmented breaths and startles were more common than cortical arousals. Additionally, augmented breaths followed by apnoea were recorded and were not usually associated with other arousal responses. All of the responses occurred periodically either as bursts of activity or as isolated responses. Each of the responses occurred more frequently during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep than during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. We conclude that there is an endogenous rhythm of spontaneous activity in infants involving excitatory processes from the brainstem, which may or may not be closely followed by cortical excitation. The spontaneous arousal responses occur periodically but with a high level of irregularity and the level of activity is affected by sleep state.
婴儿的觉醒反应涉及皮层下和皮层反应，这些反应会以一系列刻板行为的形式出现，而与引发刺激无关。然而，这些反应在睡眠期间的自发活动尚不确定。我们研究了正常婴儿的自发觉醒模式，以确定反应序列，并研究其周期性以及睡眠状态的影响。我们对10名年龄在2至10周的正常婴儿进行了午睡多导睡眠图研究。测量了脑电图和眼电图活动、呼吸气流和运动，并在每项研究过程中进行了视频记录。研究了不同水平的觉醒行为。我们发现自发觉醒活动频繁发生，大多数反应按顺序出现，先是呼吸增强，接着是惊跳，然后是皮层觉醒。呼吸增强和惊跳所反映的皮层下觉醒比皮层觉醒更常见。此外，还记录到呼吸增强后出现呼吸暂停的情况，且通常与其他觉醒反应无关。所有反应都以活动爆发或孤立反应的形式周期性出现。每种反应在快速眼动（REM）睡眠期间比在非快速眼动（NREM）睡眠期间更频繁发生。我们得出结论，婴儿存在一种自发活动的内源性节律，涉及脑干的兴奋过程，皮层兴奋可能紧跟其后，也可能不紧跟其后。自发觉醒反应周期性出现，但具有高度的不规则性，且活动水平受睡眠状态影响。
