Effects of otolithic vestibular stimulation on sleep.

This study evaluated the effects of otolithic vestibular stimulation in the form of a linearly accelerated parallel swing on nighttime sleep parameters and daytime sleep tendency in eight normal subjects. The protocol consisted of one adaptation night following by two motion nights, one adaptation night followed by two stationary nights, and two Multiple Sleep Latency Tests (MSLT), one motion and one stationary. On the motion nights, there was a decrease in stage 2 percentage as well as a facilitative effect on sleep latency on the last night. In addition, an increase in the number of rapid eye movements (REMs) per night was found without a significant alteration of REM sleep amount or latency. No significant differences were found between the motion and stationary MSLT days.

Absence of tonic electromyographic activity during sleep in normal and spastic nonmimetic skeletal muscles in man.

An electromyographic study of nonmimetic skeletal muscles was carried out in 8 normal adults and 4 patients with spastic hemiparesis during all stages of sleep for a total of 21 nights. All normal subjects showed absence of tonic electromyographic activity in all nonmimetic skeletal muscles in all stages of sleep. Also, during quiet, relaxed wakefulness, tonic muscle discharges disappeared in the normal subjects. Three patients with upper motor neuron spasticity demonstrated results during sleep similar to those obtained in the normal subjects. In the fourth patient, tonic muscle discharges persisted into stage 2 non-REM sleep, disappeared within 30 to 240 seconds following the onset of stage 2 sleep, and were absent during stages 3 and 4 sleep and REM sleep.

Absence of nystagmus during REM sleep in a patient with waking nystagmus and oscillopsia.

Polygraphic recording is presented of the sleep pattern in a young male who developed nystagmus and oscillopsia associated with a remittent CNS demyelinating disease. The vestibular nystagmus observed during wakefulness disappeared during all stages of sleep, including rapid eye movement sleep (REM). Since vestibular nystagmus experimentally induced in wakefulness is also absent during all phases of sleep, these findings suggest that during sleep similar suppressive mechanisms are operative.

Paradoxical sleep in two species of avian predator (Falconiformes).

Periods of disconjugate. and conjugate eye movements occur during the sleep cycle in Buteo jamaicensis arborealis and Herpetotheres cachinnans chapmanni. Electromyograms are essentially isoelectric throughout sleep. Slow waves appear only in short bursts of low amplitude in contrast to the long trains of high-amplitude waves reported for chickens and pigeons.

Optomotor responses to monocular stimulation: relation to visual system organization.

Results of tests on 4 mammalian, 19 reptilian, and 17 avian species confirmed the prediction that lack of optomotor response to monocular optokinetic stimulation in one of the two horizontal directions would correlate with afoveate retinal organization, whereas consistent optomotor responses to monocular stimulation in either horizontal direction would correlate with foveate organization.

Optomotor response in human infants to apparent motion: evidence of innateness.

Human infants were placed inside a stationary cylinder containing a columnar pattern like that used to elicit the optokinetic reflex. By sequential illumnination of the columns, the pattern was made to appear to rotate. Optokinetic nystagmus was clearly evoked in 64.7 percent of the subjects, with a weak-positive response in an additional 11.8 percent.