基于低高频耦合的经皮神经电刺激睡眠调制效果研究

Study on the effect of sleep modulation by transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation based on low-high frequency coupling

睡眠问题已然成为全世界日益严重的社会问题。目前,普遍用于治疗睡眠问题的药物疗法通常伴随着潜在的成瘾性和其它副作用。因此,无创脑刺激技术由于其非侵入性、靶点可调节、无成瘾性等诸多优点受到了广泛关注。其中的经皮神经电刺激(transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation,TENS)技术已被证明有一定的神经调制效果,可用于缓解各类疼痛,提高睡眠质量。但是,TENS的睡眠调节机制和评估指标尚不明确。本研究通过高低频信号叠加,耦合出四种TENS模式对颈部区域神经进行刺激,探究其辅助睡眠的效果。在刺激前后采集被试的脑电(electroencephalogram,EEG)信号,并进行处理分析,采用时频域联合分析、重心频率(gravity frequency,GF)等指标综合评估TENS效果。研究结果表明,刺激前后的重心频率存在显著性差异(p<0.05)。每种模式刺激后,delta功率增加幅度均为最高。delta功率增强区域集中在额叶及枕叶。因此,四种模式对睡眠可能均有一定促进作用,而模式一与模式四两种模式的睡眠辅助效果最为显著。同时,本研究为确定TENS刺激模式与靶点、量化评估TENS效果提供了新的思路。

Sleep problems have become a social problem worldwide.Currently,drug therapies commonly used to treat sleep problems are usually accompanied by addiction and other side effects.Therefore,non-invasive brain stimulation techniques have received a lot of attention due to their non-invasive,target-adjustable and non-addictive advantages.Among these techniques,transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation(TENS)has been proved to be effective in neuromodulation and can be used to relieve various types of pain and improve sleep quality.However,the sleep modulation mechanism and evaluation index of TENS are still unclear.In this study,four TENS modes were proposed to stimulate the nerves of the neck by superimposing high and low frequency signals to investigate their effects on assisting sleep.The electroencephalogram(EEG)signals of the subjects were collected before and after stimulation,processed and analyzed.The effect of TENS was evaluated by combined timefrequency domain analysis and gravity frequency(GF).The results showed that there was a significant difference in the gravity frequency before and after stimulation(p-values<0.05).The highest increase in delta power was observed after each mode of stimulation.Delta power enhancement was concentrated in the frontal and occipital lobes.Therefore,all four modes may have some facilitation effect on sleep,and the two modes(mode I and mode IV)had the most significant sleep-assisting effect.Meanwhile,this study provides a new idea to determine the TENS stimulation modes and targets and to quantitatively evaluate the TENS effect.