Exploring EEG-driven brain-heart coupling across sleep stages in individuals with sleep disorders

TL;DR

This study investigates how brain activity influences heart function during sleep in individuals with sleep disorders, revealing neural control of cardiac vagal tone across sleep stages and potential treatment targets.

Contribution

It provides new insights into brain-heart interactions during sleep in sleep disorder patients using EEG and ECG analysis across sleep stages.

Findings

Parasympathetic activity varies with delta and beta EEG powers during NREM sleep.

Neural activity influences vagal tone, affecting heart rate variability.

Potential for EEG-based interventions to restore cardiac regulation during sleep.

Abstract

The interactions between the brain and heart during sleep are responsible for regulating autonomic function. While brain-heart coupling has been studied in healthy populations, the relationships between neural and cardiac activity across sleep stages in the presence of sleep disorders are not clear. This study examines the influence of brain-driven cardiac activity across sleep stages for individuals with sleep disorders. Overnight recordings of C3 and C4 electroencephalogram (EEG) channels and electrocardiogram (ECG) signals from 146 individuals were preprocessed and analyzed in the frequency domain through a linear mixed-effect model. Our results show that parasympathetic activity is sensitive to changes in delta and beta powers during later stages of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, as both band powers exhibited strong negative effects on high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV) power. These findings show that neural activity can drive vagal tone across sleep stages, suggesting that treatments on key EEG bands during NREM and REM stages may help restore regular cardiac behaviour.