Rapid Eye Movement Sleep, Sleep Continuity and Slow Wave Sleep as Predictors of Cognition, Mood, and Subjective Sleep Quality in Healthy Men and Women, Aged 20-84 Years.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Cross-sectional observational study
PubMed 29988413 · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00255
What was done
Sleep architecture was quantified using polysomnography, quantitative EEG, and self-report in 206 healthy men and women aged 20–84 years without sleep complaints. Waking cognitive function, mood, and alertness were evaluated across five daytime testing sessions assessing sustained attention, response time, motor control, working memory, executive function, and affect. Factor analysis grouped 51 performance measures into four latent factors (Mood/Arousal, Response Time, Accuracy, and Visual Perceptual Sensitivity), and associations with sleep metrics were analyzed after controlling for age and sex.
What was found
Subjective sleep quality was negatively associated with the number of awakenings and positively associated with REM sleep duration, with no significant associations with slow-wave sleep (SWS). Controlling only for age showed that objective-subjective sleep associations were stronger in women than in men. Better Goal Neglect task performance (executive function) was significantly associated with fewer awakenings and more REM sleep. Factor analysis showed nominally significant associations where Response Times were faster with more SWS, and Accuracy was reduced with more frequent awakenings or less REM sleep. The abstract reported directions and nominal significance without exact numerical effect sizes, correlation values, or p-values.
Why it matters
The study suggests that specific sleep sub-states correlate with distinct cognitive domains across the adult lifespan, linking sleep continuity and REM sleep to executive accuracy and subjective quality, and slow-wave sleep to processing speed.
Limits
The cross-sectional design cannot establish causality between sleep architecture and cognitive performance. The abstract does not provide specific numerical effect sizes, confidence intervals, or exact p-values. Analyzing 51 performance measures carries a risk of multiple testing bias despite factor reduction. Findings from healthy individuals without sleep complaints may not generalize to clinical populations.
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