title: The multiple time scales of sleep dynamics as a challenge for modelling the sleeping brain.
abstract: A particular property of the sleeping brain is that it exhibits dynamics on very different time scales ranging from the typical sleep oscillations such as sleep spindles and slow waves that can be observed in electroencephalogram (EEG) segments of several seconds duration over the transitions between the different sleep stages on a time scale of minutes to the dynamical processes involved in sleep regulation with typical time constants in the range of hours. There is an increasing body of work on mathematical and computational models addressing these different dynamics, however, usually considering only processes on a single time scale. In this paper, we review and present a new analysis of the dynamics of human sleep EEG at the different time scales and relate the findings to recent modelling efforts pointing out both the achievements and remaining challenges.
authors: Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Inselstraße 22, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. olbrich@mis.mpg.de
authors: Eckehard
authors: E
authors: Olbrich
authors: Jens Christian
authors: JC
authors: Claussen
authors: Peter
authors: P
authors: Achermann
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D058256:Brain Waves / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*; D012894:Sleep Stages / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors; D014851:Wakefulness / Q000502:physiology