Transcranial Electrical Stimulation targeting limbic cortex increases the duration of human deep sleep

BACKGROUND: Researchers have proposed that impaired sleep may be a causal link in the progression from Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) to Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Several recent findings suggest that enhancing deep sleep (N3) may improve neurological health in persons with MCI, and buffer the risk for AD. Specifically, Transcranial Electrical Stimulation (TES) of frontal brain areas, the inferred source of the Slow Oscillations (SOs) of N3 sleep, can extend N3 sleep duration and improve declarative memory for recently learned information. Recent work in our laboratory using dense array Electroencephalography (dEEG) localized the sources of SOs to anterior limbic sites – suggesting that targeting these sites with TES may be more effective for enhancing N3. METHODS: For the present study, we recruited 13 healthy adults (M = 42 years) to participate in three all-night sleep EEG recordings where they received low level (0.5 mA) TES designed to target anterior limbic areas and a sham stimulation (placebo). We used a convolutional neural network, trained and tested on professionally scored EEG sleep staging, to predict sleep stages for each recording. RESULTS: When compared to the sham session, limbic-targeted TES significantly increased the duration of N3 sleep. TES also significantly increased spectral power in the 0.5–1 Hz frequency band (relative to pre-TES epochs) in left temporoparietal and left occipital scalp regions compared to sham. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that even low-level TES, when specifically targeting anterior limbic sites, can increase deep (N3) sleep and thereby contribute to healthy sleep quality.