title: Sleep apnea and effect of chemostimulation on breathing instability in mice.
abstract: Sleep apnea occurs in humans and experimental animals. We examined whether it also arises in adult mice. Ventilation in male adult 129/Sv mice was recorded concomitantly by electroencephalograms and electromyograms for 6 h by use of body plethysmography. Apnea was defined as cessation of plethysmographic signals for longer than two respiratory cycles. While mice breathed room air, 32.3 +/- 6.9 (mean +/- SE, n = 5) apneas were observed during sleep but not in quiet awake periods. Sleep apneas were further classified into two types. Postsigh apneas occurred exclusively during slow-wave sleep (SWS), whereas spontaneous apneas arose during both SWS and rapid eye movement sleep. Compared with room air (9.1 +/- 1.4/h of SWS), postsigh apneas were more frequent in hypoxia (13.7 +/- 2.1) and less frequent in hyperoxia (3.6 +/- 1.7) and hypercapnia (2.8 +/- 2.1). Our data indicated that significant sleep apnea occurs in normal adult mice and suggested that the mouse could be a promising experimental model with which to study the genetic and molecular basis of respiratory regulation during sleep.
authors.affiliation: Department of Autonomic Physiology, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Chiba-city, Japan.
authors.forename: Akira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nakamura
authors.forename: Yasuichiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Fukuda
authors.forename: Tomoyuki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kuwaki
mesh_terms: D000388:Air; D000818:Animals; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004576:Electromyography; D005740:Gases; D006935:Hypercapnia / Q000503:physiopathology; D018496:Hyperoxia / Q000503:physiopathology; D000860:Hypoxia / Q000503:physiopathology; D001239:Inhalation; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008815:Mice, Inbred Strains; D010993:Plethysmography, Whole Body; D012119:Respiration; D012891:Sleep Apnea Syndromes / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012894:Sleep Stages; D014851:Wakefulness
chemical_list: D005740:Gases