fMRI correlates of behavioural microsleeps during a continuous visuomotor task

• Published in: 2009 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Vol. 2009; pp. 2919 - 2922
• Main Authors: Poudel, G.R., Jones, R.D., Innes, C.R.H., Watts, R., Signal, T.L., Bones, P.J.
• Format: Conference Proceeding Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01-01-2009
• Subjects: Adult; Behavior; Biomedical engineering; Bones; Brain - pathology; Circadian rhythm; Delay; Electroencephalography; Electroencephalography - methods; Electrooculography - methods; Female; Homeostasis; Hospitals; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - methods; Linear Models; Magnetic resonance imaging; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Male; Middle Aged; Physics; Reproducibility of Results; Sleep; Time Factors; USA Councils; Vision, Ocular
• ISSN: 1094-687X; 1557-170X; 1558-4615
• DOI: 10.1109/IEMBS.2009.5334486

Behavioural microsleeps (BMs) are brief episodes of absent responsiveness accompanied by slow-eye-closure. They frequently occur as a consequence of sleep-deprivation, an extended monotonous task, and are modulated by the circadian rhythm and sleep homeostatic pressure. In this paper, a multimodal method to investigate the neural correlates of BMs using simultaneous recording of fMRI, eye-video, VEOG, and continuous visuomotor response is presented. The data were collected from 20 healthy volunteers while they performed a continuous visuomotor tracking task inside an MRI scanner for 50 min. The BMs were identified post-hoc by expert visual rating of eye-video and visuomotor response using a set of pre-defined criteria. fMRI analysis of BMs revealed changes in haemodynamic activity in several cortical and sub-cortical regions associated with visuomotor control and arousal.