[The 4 second sleep spindle periodicity].

Polysomnographic EEGs were recorded from 12 adult volunteers between the ages of 20 and 50 years. They were given placebo, pentobarbital, carbromal, methaqualone, flunitrazepam, lormetazepam and triazolam. The visual evaluation was aimed at finding periodic sequences of centro-parietal sleep spindles at 13-15/s. Four consecutive spindles following each other regularly were defined as the shortest sequence. Placebo showed the following results: a considerable interindividual variance with 2 to 6 such sequences on the one hand and 25 on the other hand for each night. sequences with six periodically consecutive spindles dominated; the longest sequence contained 15 spindles. the inter-spindle distance was 4 seconds (m: 4.09; mean 4.14 s). All hypnotics caused an increase in periodic spindle sequences. Volunteers with a low tendency to have periodic spindle sequences remained at the lower end of the scale when taking hypnotics. Hypnotics increased the amount of longer spindle sequences, however, the average was still at sequences of 4-11 consecutive spindles. The inter-spindle distance became longer with all hypnotics; 4.34 s (carbromal) up to 4.58 s (flunitrazepam). Volunteers with a low tendency to have periodic spindle sequences showed shorter distances between spindles vice versa. Benzodiazepines do not reveal any characteristics due to their pharmacokinetic structure.