title: Nap sleep spindle correlates of intelligence.
abstract: Sleep spindles are thalamocortical oscillations in non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, that play an important role in sleep-related neuroplasticity and offline information processing. Several studies with full-night sleep recordings have reported a positive association between sleep spindles and fluid intelligence scores, however more recently it has been shown that only few sleep spindle measures correlate with intelligence in females, and none in males. Sleep spindle regulation underlies a circadian rhythm, however the association between spindles and intelligence has not been investigated in daytime nap sleep so far. In a sample of 86 healthy male human subjects, we investigated the correlation between fluid intelligence and sleep spindle parameters in an afternoon nap of 100 minutes. Mean sleep spindle length, amplitude and density were computed for each subject and for each derivation for both slow and fast spindles. A positive association was found between intelligence and slow spindle duration, but not any other sleep spindle parameter. As a positive correlation between intelligence and slow sleep spindle duration in full-night polysomnography has only been reported in females but not males, our results suggest that the association between intelligence and sleep spindles is more complex than previously assumed.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Semmelweis University, H-1089 Budapest, Hungary.|National Institute of Clinical Neuroscience, Epilepsy Centrum, Department of Neurology, H-1145 Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: Péter P
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: Ujma
authors.affiliation: Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Semmelweis University, H-1089 Budapest, Hungary.|Department of General Psychology, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, H-1088 Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: Róbert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bódizs
authors.affiliation: Department of General Psychology, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, H-1088 Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: Ferenc
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gombos
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, 80804 Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Stintzing
authors.affiliation: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, 6525 EN Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Boris N
authors.initials: BN
authors.lastname: Konrad
authors.affiliation: Centre for Cognitive and Neural Systems, University of Edinburgh, EH8 9JZ Edinburgh, UK.
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Genzel
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, 80804 Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Axel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Steiger
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, 80804 Munich, Germany.|Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, 6525 EN Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dresler
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D058256:Brain Waves / Q000502:physiology*; D004566:Electrodes; D004569:Electroencephalography; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult