All-night EEG power spectral analysis of the cyclic alternating pattern at different ages

Objective: To analyze in detail the frequency content of the different EEG components of the Cyclic Alternating Pattern (CAP) in the whole sleep of pre-school and school age children compared to normal young adults. Methods: Fourteen pre-school age and 18 school age children and 16 adults were included in this study. Each participant underwent a polysomnographic overnight recording, after an adaptation night; sleep stages and CAP were scored following standard criteria. Average spectra were obtained for each CAP condition from the signal recorded from C3/A2 or C4/A1, separately in sleep stage 2 and slow-wave sleep (SWS), for each subject. Results: The analysis of the relative power density in the three groups showed that in sleep stage 2 and in SWS, CAP A1, A2, A3 subtypes had a significantly higher power in all frequency ranges in pre-school children than in adults, while school children differed mainly for the lower frequencies (