title: [Muscular contractions during sleep in children (author's transl)].
abstract: The present paper deals with a transitory axial EMG phenomenon during sleep: muscular contractions visible not only on the EMG channel but on the EEG channels as well. Only those contractions which did not lead to behavioural or electrical awakening were considered here. Records were kept on their number, duration, time of occurrence during the night as well as the sleep stage and the level of the background tonic EMG activity during the 2 minutes preceding and succeeding the contraction. The function of these contractions in the regulation of sleep was discussed: the need for tonic reafferentation or counteraction of prolonged axial hypotony which may bring about discomfort; the maintenance of sleep throughout this periodic reafferentation.
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004576:Electromyography; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D009119:Muscle Contraction; D009129:Muscle Tonus; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*; D012894:Sleep Stages / Q000502:physiology
vernacular_title: Etudes des contractions musculaires au cours du sommeil chez le jeune enfant.