Age-associated sleep spindle characteristics in Duchenne muscular dystrophy

Katharine C Simon; Chelsea Cadle; Neal Nakra; Marni C Nagel; Paola Malerba

doi:10.1093/sleepadvances/zpae015

Age-associated sleep spindle characteristics in Duchenne muscular dystrophy

Sleep Adv. 2024 Mar 14;5(1):zpae015. doi: 10.1093/sleepadvances/zpae015. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Katharine C Simon^{1

2}, Chelsea Cadle³, Neal Nakra², Marni C Nagel⁴, Paola Malerba^{3

5}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
² Pulmonology Department, Children's Hospital of Orange County, Orange, CA, USA.
³ Center for Biobehavioral Health, Abigail Wexner Research Institute, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA.
⁴ Department of Pediatric Psychology, Children's Hospital of Orange County, Orange, CA, USA.
⁵ Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.

Abstract

Brain oscillations of non-rapid eye movement sleep, including slow oscillations (SO, 0.5-1.5 Hz) and spindles (10-16 Hz), mirror underlying brain maturation across development and are associated with cognition. Hence, age-associated emergence and changes in the electrophysiological properties of these rhythms can lend insight into cortical development, specifically in comparisons between pediatric populations and typically developing peers. We previously evaluated age-associated changes in SOs in male patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), finding a significant age-related decline between 4 and 18 years. While primarily a muscle disorder, male patients with DMD can also have sleep, cognitive, and cortical abnormalities, thought to be driven by altered dystrophin expression in the brain. In this follow-up study, we characterized the age-associated changes in sleep spindles. We found that age-dependent spindle characteristics in patients with DMD, including density, frequency, amplitude, and duration, were consistent with age-associated trends reported in the literature for typically developing controls. Combined with our prior finding of age-associated decline in SOs, our results suggest that SOs, but not spindles, are a candidate intervention target to enhance sleep in patients with DMD.

Keywords: Duchenne muscular dystrophy; development; sleep spindles.