Introduction: Sleep spindles and P50 sensory gating are both reflective of cerebral inhibition, however, are differentially active during different phases of sleep. Assessing whether sleep spindles and P50 sensory gating correlate is a first step to evaluate whether these 2 forms of cerebral inhibition reflect overlapping neural circuits.
Methods: EEG data were collected between midnight and 6:00 AM on 13 healthy preschool-aged children. P50 sensory gating, calculated during REM sleep, negatively correlated with spindle duration (r=-.715, p=.006) and inter-peak density (r=.744, p=.004). There was a trend toward higher S2/S1 ratios being associated with fewer peaks per spindle (r=-.546, p=.053). In 4-year-olds, 2 established physiological measures of sensory gating and are correlated despite being maximally active during different stages of sleep.
Conclusions: These results suggest there is an overlap in brain mechanisms underlying each gating mechanism.