Unilateral thalamic stroke does not decrease ipsilateral sleep spindles.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: To measure the sleep spindle characteristics in patients with unilateral thalamic stroke. DESIGN: A prospective study of patients with thalamic stroke and age-matched healthy controls. SETTING: Department of Neurology of a University Hospital. PARTICIPANTS: Thirteen patients (mean age: 67 years, SD: 13,44) with an isolated, unilateral acute thalamic stroke and 18 healthy age-matched volunteers. INTERVENTIONS: A polysomnogram recording from 14 scalp EEG electrodes performed during 2 consecutive nights, the second or third week after the stroke. Only the sleep of the second night was analyzed. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Sleep spindles were counted during two separate 10-minute epochs of stage II. Spindles appearing synchronously in both sides with similar amplitude were called "bilateral." Spindles with twice the amplitude in one side than the other were "right" or "left-side predominant". There were 8 patients with posterolateral, 3 with global and 2 with anterior lesions. Eight were right and 5 left-sided. The number of spindles was similar in patients (39.8 +/- 23.4 in 20 minutes) than controls (26.07 +/- 29.07; p=0.173). Spindles with a centroparietal (34%) and centroparieto-occipital localization (22%) were the most frequent. In controls approximately 66% of the spindles had a bilateral and symmetric distribution over the scalp, 23% of the spindles were predominantly left-sided and 5% were predominantly right-sided. In patients, bilateral spindles decreased (p<0.0001) but asymmetric spindles did not change. CONCLUSION: Unilateral acute thalamic stroke does not decrease sleep spindles ipsilaterally; rather, it seems to produce a bilateral diminution in their number.