Effect of normal sleep and sleep deprivation on interhemispheric correlation during subsequent wakefulness in man.

EEG activity was recorded from the right and left central, temporal, parietal and occipital derivations in 10 volunteers under the following conditions: at night before going to sleep, at night before sleep deprivation, in the morning after waking, in the morning after sleep deprivation and in the morning 48 h after recovery. Interhemispheric correlation and relative power were calculated for EEG samples of 20.48 sec. In the morning after normal sleep interhemispheric correlations were higher in all derivations in comparison to presleep values, while in the morning after sleep deprivation, interhemispheric correlations were lower or similar to predeprivation values in all derivations except the temporal cortex. The relative power of beta was significantly lower after normal sleep and higher after sleep loss, while the relative power of low frequencies was higher in the morning after sleep and lower in the morning after deprivation.