The REM and SWS Deprivation Concept

According to studies, “REM frequency reduced in periods of erratic sleep during nights of recovery that arose out of being deprived of sleep partially or fully”. Increases in the need to sleep as a result of manipulating the duration of sleep are linked to this effect. This study was done with the intention of assessing the rates of variations in REM frequency in the night of recovery as a result of successive nights of SWS deprivation; and also to assess the linkage between the frequency of the REM, the amount of SWS, and Auditory Arousal Threshold (AAT), as an autonomous measurement of the extent of sleep.

Studies of ten men in a laboratory were carried out. The study parameters focused on the adaptation, baseline, SWS deprivation and recovery. The amount of SWS was able to be set in the nights when deprivation was close to zero, without making short the time that total sleep occurred. This was achieved after allowing SWS deprivation to take place. Considerable SWS recurrence occurred in the recovery night that followed. This was followed by a hand-in-hand increase in the ATT.

Furthermore, the frequency of the REM reduced considerably when it was matched with the baseline. Changes in the preceding sleep period cannot be linked to this effect; this is because in the periods of selective SWS deprivation nights, sleep loss did not occur. Furthermore, “the reduction in the REM frequency is not correspondent with the increase in the ATT, which is the conventional measure of the index of sleep depth”. This was found from the analysis of the step regression. However, the decrease in the REM rebound was found to be correspondent with SWS rebound.