Bastuji Hélène, Perrin Fabien, Garcia-Larrea Luis
Institut Fédératif des Neurosciences de Lyon (IFNL), Lyon, France. bastuji@univ-lyon 1.fr
Int J Psychophysiol. 2002 Dec;46(3):243-55. doi: 10.1016/s0167-8760(02)00116-2.
This review summarises the results of event-related potentials studies exploring the extent to which the human brain can extract semantic information from external stimuli during sleep. The persistence of a differential response to the subject's own name, relative to any other proper name, during stage 2 (S2) and paradoxical (REM) sleep (PS) suggests that the brain remains able to discriminate an intrinsically relevant word during these sleep stages. The similarities and the differences between these sleep cognitive responses and the waking P300 are stressed, and the functional significance of this component discussed especially in relation with consciousness and memory of the stimulus. Recent studies of the 'N400' potential evoked by semantically incongruous words, have shown that this component may be also elicited during S2 and PS, indicating preserved detection of semantic discordance during these sleep stages. However, linguistic incongruity appears to be processed in a different manner during PS than during waking, since words devoid of meaning (pseudo-words), which are detected as anomalous and evoke N400 during waking, yielded responses similar to those of congruous words in PS. All these data support the view that some semantic analysis of auditory stimuli remains possible in the human sleeping brain, and warrant further studies to elucidate the extent and limits of these capabilities.
本综述总结了事件相关电位研究的结果，这些研究探讨了人类大脑在睡眠期间从外部刺激中提取语义信息的程度。在第二阶段（S2）和异相（快速眼动）睡眠（PS）期间，相对于任何其他专有名词，对受试者自己名字的差异反应持续存在，这表明大脑在这些睡眠阶段仍能够辨别一个本质上相关的单词。强调了这些睡眠认知反应与清醒时的P300之间的异同，并特别讨论了该成分与刺激的意识和记忆相关的功能意义。最近关于语义不一致单词诱发的“N400”电位的研究表明，该成分在S2和PS期间也可能被诱发，这表明在这些睡眠阶段对语义不一致的检测仍然存在。然而，语言不一致在PS期间的处理方式似乎与清醒时不同，因为在清醒时被检测为异常并诱发N400的无意义单词（伪词），在PS中产生的反应与一致单词相似。所有这些数据支持这样一种观点，即人类睡眠大脑对听觉刺激进行一些语义分析仍然是可能的，并且有必要进行进一步的研究以阐明这些能力的程度和局限性。
