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Rapid Eye Movement Sleep in Breath Holders

Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan, jkohyama.ped{at}med.tmd.ac.jp, Department of Pediatrics, Tsuchiura Kyoudou General Hospital Ibaraki

Takeshi Hasegawa, MD

Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan

Masayuki Shimohira, MD

Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan

Michio Fukumizu, MD, PhD

Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan

Yoshihide Iwakawa, MD

Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan

One-night polysomnography was performed on seven subjects suffering from breath-holding spells, including one whose death was suggested to be a consequence of a breath-holding spell. The fatal case showed no rapid eye movements (REMs) during REM sleep, although he exhibited REMs during wakefulness. The average numbers of both REMs and bursts of REMs in REM sleep in the other six breath holders were significantly lower than those in age-matched controls. The breath holders showed no airway obstruction, desaturation, or sleep fragmentation. Since the rapid ocular activity in REM sleep is generated in the brain stem, we hypothesized that a functional brainstem disturbance is involved in the occurrence of breath-holding spells. (J Child Neurol 2000;15:449-452).

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