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Polysomnographic study of the autonomic nervous system in potential victims of sudden infant death syndrome

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Abstract

To determine the influence of sleep stages and night-time distribution on cardiac autonomic activity, the polysomnographic recordings of 18 victims of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and of 36 control infants were studied. Autoregressive spectral analyses of heart rate (HR), using both short-term and whole-night methods, were evaluated as a function of sleep stages. The two main peaks of normalized LF and HF were computed during the night and the sympathovagal balance (LF/HF) was determined.

In both NREM and REM sleep, SIDS infants were characterized by significantly lower normalized HF powers and higher LF/HF ratios. This finding was observed in both short-term and whole-night HR spectral analyses. In addition, SIDS victims were characterized by the presence of a high desynchronized peak of sympathetic tonus in the late hours of the night, a finding not seen in the control subjects.

This report adds further indirect evidence for a possible sleep-related impairment of autonomic controls in some infants who died of SIDS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Belgium

    Michèle Dramaix Ph.D.

  2. Pediatric Sleep Unit, University Children's Hospital, Free University of Brussels, Belgium

    André Kahn M.D., Ph.D.

  3. Pediatric Sleep Unit, Erasmus Hospital, Route de Lennik 808, 1070, Brussels, Belgium

    Patricia Franco & Henri Szliwowski M.D.

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  1. Patricia Franco
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  2. Henri Szliwowski M.D.
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  3. Michèle Dramaix Ph.D.
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  4. André Kahn M.D., Ph.D.
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Franco, P., Szliwowski, H., Dramaix, M. et al. Polysomnographic study of the autonomic nervous system in potential victims of sudden infant death syndrome. Clinical Autonomic Research 8, 243–249 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02277969

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02277969

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