Temporal association between sleep spindles and ripples in the human anterior and mediodorsal thalamus

Sleep spindles are major oscillatory components of Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) sleep, reflecting hyperpolarization-rebound sequences of thalamocortical neurons. Reports suggest a link between sleep spindles and several forms of high-frequency oscillations which are considered as expressions of pathological off-line neural plasticity in the central nervous system. Here we investigated the relationship between thalamic sleep spindles and ripples in the anterior and mediodorsal nuclei (ANT and MD) of epilepsy patients. Whole-night LFP from the ANT and MD were co-registered with scalp EEG/polysomnography by using externalized leads in 15 epilepsy patients undergoing a Deep Brain Stimulation protocol. Slow (similar to 12 Hz) and fast (similar to 14 Hz) sleep spindles were present in the human ANT and MD and roughly, 20% of them were associated with ripples. Ripple-associated thalamic sleep spindles were characterized by longer duration and exceeded pure spindles in terms of spindle power as indicated by time-frequency analysis. Furthermore, ripple amplitude was modulated by the phase of sleep spindles within both thalamic nuclei. No signs of pathological processes were correlated with measures of ripple and spindle association, furthermore, the density of ripple-associated sleep spindles in the ANT showed a positive correlation with verbal comprehension. Our findings indicate the involvement of the human thalamus in coalescent spindle-ripple oscillations of NREM sleep.