title: Frequency and state specific hemispheric asymmetries in the human sleep EEG.
abstract: Regional differences in the sleep EEG along the antero-posterior axis have been recently described. To test for state related, hemispheric differences, sleep records from homologous fronto-central, centro-parietal and parieto-occipital derivations were obtained from 14 young right-handed males. Within the frequency range of sleep spindles (11-15 Hz) power in non-REM sleep dominated in the left hemisphere in all derivations. In the centro-parietal 4-8 Hz band a right-hemispheric predominance prevailed in non-REM sleep and a left-hemispheric predominance in REM sleep. Since the frequency bands exhibiting hemispheric asymmetries are those in which large antero-posterior power gradients had been observed, the left-right differences may arise from structural and functional asymmetries of brain regions involved in the generation of the sleep EEG.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Pharmacology, University of Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Roth
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Achermann
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Borbély
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D012895:Sleep, REM / Q000502:physiology*