ヒトの徐波睡眠時におけるK-complexと聴性誘発電位との関係

A CORRELATION BETWEEN K-COMPLEX AND AUDITORY EVOKED POTENTIAL (AEP) DURING THE SLOW WAVE SLEEP (STAGE 3) IN MAN

I．はじめに

　Loomis （1973）^8）およびDavis （1939）ら^2）によつて，脳波におけるK-complexが報告されて以来，この現象は2つの方面から注目されている。その1つは，中枢機能に関する神経生理学的方面^{1,3,5,8,11,17）}からであり，他の1つは，臨床的にK-complexを指標として聴力検査^17,20,23）に応用しようとするものである。

　これまでK-complexと聴性誘発電位（auditory evo—ked potential，以下AEPと呼ぶ）との関係を指摘したもの^3,11,15）はあるが，詳しい解析はなされていない。

For this study, sleep EEG of eleven healthyadult subjects ranged from 25 to 30 years of age were observed during stage 3 and evoked K-complex and AEP were both concordantly recorded to investigate the correlation between latencies of s-components in the K-complexes and N₄-components in the AEPs during stage 3.

The results obtained were as follow:

(1) Three distinct components of K-complex such as sharp wave, slow wave (s-component) and burst wave of 12-14 c/sec were found almost constantly during stage 3.

(2) It can be concluded that the evoked K-complexes (s-components) in the EEG were almost equivalent to the AEPs (N₄-components) if both were concordantly recorded time-locked to click stimuli which were presented every 10 sec with 15 decibels during stage 3.

(3) S-component of K-complex such as slow wave was attributed to the impulse bombardment of the nucleus reticularis thalami which is a frequency gate following the hypothesis of Scheibel, M. E. and Scheibel, A. B..^{18 19})