Acute deprivation of the terminal 3.5 hours of sleep does not increase delta (0-3-Hz) electroencephalograms in recovery sleep.

Sleep electroencephalograms (EEG) and electrooculograms were recorded in nine young adult males on a baseline night, a night in which they were deprived of an average of 3 hr 27 min of sleep by early awakening, and on a recovery night. Records were analyzed by visual sleep stage scoring and period-amplitude analysis; the results of both were tabulated by successive nonrapid eye movement periods (NREMPs) and rapid eye movement (REM) periods. Neither visually scored delta nor REM measures were affected by this substitution of waking for sleep. Although there was a significant increase in the 0-3-Hz time/epoch on the recovery night, this finding was not confirmed in the accompanying report. These results, taken in association with data from previous studies, are consistent with the hypothesis that, in an acute experiment, visually scored delta and computer-measured 0-3-Hz EEGs increase above the baseline levels only if there has been loss of stage 3/4 EEG (or of sleep) from the first two NREMPs. The findings here are inconsistent with older reports and indicate that further parametric data are required to construct a quantitative model of the relation of sleep EEG waveforms to the duration of prior waking.