Closed-loop auditory stimulation of sleep slow oscillations: Basic principles and best practices

Mahdad Jafarzadeh Esfahani; Soha Farboud; Hong-Viet V Ngo; Jules Schneider; Frederik D Weber; Lucia M Talamini; Martin Dresler

doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105379

Closed-loop auditory stimulation of sleep slow oscillations: Basic principles and best practices

Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2023 Oct:153:105379. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105379. Epub 2023 Sep 3.

Authors

Mahdad Jafarzadeh Esfahani¹, Soha Farboud², Hong-Viet V Ngo³, Jules Schneider⁴, Frederik D Weber⁵, Lucia M Talamini⁶, Martin Dresler⁷

Affiliations

¹ Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboudumc, the Netherlands.
² Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, the Netherlands.
³ Department of Psychology, University of Essex, United Kingdom; Department of Psychology, University of Lübeck, Germany; Center for Brain, Behaviour and Metabolism, University of Lübeck, Germany.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany; Department of Neurology, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.
⁵ Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboudumc, the Netherlands; Department of Sleep and Cognition, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
⁶ Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Amsterdam Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
⁷ Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboudumc, the Netherlands. Electronic address: martin.dresler@donders.ru.nl.

PMID: 37660843
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105379

Abstract

Sleep is essential for our physical and mental well-being. During sleep, despite the paucity of overt behavior, our brain remains active and exhibits a wide range of coupled brain oscillations. In particular slow oscillations are characteristic for sleep, however whether they are directly involved in the functions of sleep, or are mere epiphenomena, is not yet fully understood. To disentangle the causality of these relationships, experiments utilizing techniques to detect and manipulate sleep oscillations in real-time are essential. In this review, we first overview the theoretical principles of closed-loop auditory stimulation (CLAS) as a method to study the role of slow oscillations in the functions of sleep. We then describe technical guidelines and best practices to perform CLAS and analyze results from such experiments. We further provide an overview of how CLAS has been used to investigate the causal role of slow oscillations in various sleep functions. We close by discussing important caveats, open questions, and potential topics for future research.

Keywords: ACLS; CLAS; Closed-loop auditory stimulation; Sleep; Slow oscillations; Slow waves.

Publication types

Review