Silvani Alessandro, Ferri Raffaele, Lo Martire Viviana, Bastianini Stefano, Berteotti Chiara, Salvadè Agnese, Plazzi Giuseppe, Zucconi Marco, Ferini-Strambi Luigi, Bassetti Claudio L, Manconi Mauro, Zoccoli Giovanna
PRISM Laboratory, Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
Sleep Research Center, Department of Neurology I.C., Oasi Research Institute, Troina, Italy.
Sleep. 2017 Apr 1;40(4). doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsx029.
Rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep without atonia (RSWA) is a marker of REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) and is common in narcolepsy. Available techniques for electromyogram (EMG) analysis are species-specific, limiting translational research on RSWA. We developed an automated technique based on distributions of normalized EMG values (DNE) to overcome this limitation. With DNE, we tested whether the control of neck and tibialis anterior (TA) muscles during sleep in wild-type rats and mice validly models the control of submentalis (chin) and TA muscles in healthy humans. We then applied DNE to REM sleep recordings of patients with idiopathic RBD and of mouse models of narcolepsy, testing for a common DNE signature of RSWA.
Retrospective analysis of sleep recordings from 20 idiopathic RBD patients, 34 control subjects, 8 wild-type rats, 21 orexin-neuron deficient mice, 8 orexin knock-out mice, and 22 wild-type mice.
Neck EMG of rats and mice and human chin EMG progressively decreased from wakefulness to non-REM sleep and REM sleep, whereas the effects of sleep on TA EMG differed between rats, mice, and humans. DNE discriminated idiopathic RBD patients from controls based on higher median values of normalized chin EMG during REM sleep. The same parameter, computed on neck muscle EMG, discriminated narcoleptic mice from wild-type mice.
These results support the application of DNE in translational research on RSWA. Increased median values of normalized EMG of chin (humans) and neck (rats and mice) muscles may be a signature of RSWA in different species and pathological conditions.
快速眼动睡眠期无张力（RSWA）是快速眼动睡眠行为障碍（RBD）的一个标志，且在发作性睡病中很常见。现有的肌电图（EMG）分析技术具有物种特异性，限制了对RSWA的转化研究。我们开发了一种基于标准化肌电图值分布（DNE）的自动化技术来克服这一限制。利用DNE，我们测试了野生型大鼠和小鼠睡眠期间颈部和胫前肌（TA）的控制是否能有效地模拟健康人类颏下（下巴）肌和TA肌的控制。然后，我们将DNE应用于特发性RBD患者和发作性睡病小鼠模型的快速眼动睡眠记录，测试RSWA的共同DNE特征。
对20例特发性RBD患者、34例对照受试者、8只野生型大鼠、21只食欲素神经元缺陷小鼠、8只食欲素敲除小鼠和22只野生型小鼠的睡眠记录进行回顾性分析。
大鼠和小鼠的颈部肌电图以及人类的下巴肌电图从清醒到非快速眼动睡眠和快速眼动睡眠逐渐降低，而睡眠对TA肌电图的影响在大鼠、小鼠和人类之间有所不同。DNE根据快速眼动睡眠期间标准化下巴肌电图的较高中位数，将特发性RBD患者与对照区分开来。根据颈部肌肉肌电图计算的相同参数，将发作性睡病小鼠与野生型小鼠区分开来。
这些结果支持DNE在RSWA转化研究中的应用。下巴（人类）和颈部（大鼠和小鼠）肌肉标准化肌电图中位数的增加可能是不同物种和病理状况下RSWA的一个特征。
