Mg. Frank et Hc. Heller, DEVELOPMENT OF REM AND SLOW-WAVE SLEEP IN THE RAT, American journal of physiology. Regulatory, integrative and comparative physiology, 41(6), 1997, pp. 1792-1799
Active sleep (AS) in the neonate has been considered to be an immature
form of rapid eye movement !REM) sleep, Quiet sleep !QS) has been tho
ught to represent an immature form of slow wave sleep (SWS). To determ
ine the relationship between the behaviorally determined states of AS
and QS and electrographically determined REM sleep and SWS, we examine
d sleep ontogeny in the developing rat using an experimental routine t
hat permitted long-term recordings and minimized the effects of matern
al separation. Under these conditions. a transient state that included
electroencephalographic slow wave activity and phasic motor activity
was eventually replaced with the mature SWS pattern. Our work suggests
that neonatal QS is not an immature form of SWS and that AS is best c
onsidered as an undifferentiated behavioral state from which both SWS
and REM sleep develop.