Habituation of K-complexes or event-related potentials during sleep.

We examined habituation and dishabituation of evoked K-complexes (equivalent to auditory event-related potentials) during sleep. Habituation is investigated by presenting trains of stimuli with a 5 sec inter-stimulus interval and a 4 min inter-train interval. Habituation is complete by the third identical stimulus in a train and dishabituation occurs after deviant stimuli and after the inter-train interval. Although there are morphological differences between K-complexes in sleep and auditory event-related potentials in wakefulness, they share the phenomenon of habituation to repetitive events.