Rapid Eye Movement Sleep during Early Life: A Comprehensive Narrative Review.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Narrative review synthesizing preclinical and clinical mechanistic literature
PubMed 36293678 · doi:10.3390/ijerph192013101
What was done
This narrative review synthesized behavioral, polysomnographic, and physiological literature from human and mammalian studies examining rapid eye movement (REM) sleep during early life. The authors evaluated the ontogenetic sleep hypothesis, mechanisms of central nervous system maturation (such as neuronal differentiation, migration, myelination, and synaptic remodeling), and the involvement of early-life REM sleep disruptions in neurodevelopmental disorders including narcolepsy, autism, and ADHD.
What was found
The abstract reports no numerical findings, effect sizes, or quantitative data. Qualitatively, it reports that high volumes of REM sleep are consistently observed during early development across species to support brain maturation, and that disturbances in early-life REM sleep represent a common shared feature among several neurodevelopmental conditions.
Why it matters
The review provides a cross-species conceptual framework linking early-life sleep architecture to fundamental neurodevelopmental processes and neurodevelopmental pathology.
Limits
The paper is a non-systematic narrative review without reported search criteria, quality appraisal, or quantitative meta-analysis. The abstract does not provide the total number of reviewed studies, sample sizes, or measurable effect estimates.
Cited by
- supports Human infants spend 50% of their total sleep time in REM sleep, which decreases as brain plasticity declines with age.