Abstract

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) severely impacts sleep and has long-term health consequences. Treating sleep apnea with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) not only relieves obstructed breathing, but also improves sleep. CPAP improves sleep by reducing apnea-induced awakenings. CPAP may also improve sleep by enhancing features of sleep architecture assessed with electroencephalography (EEG) that maximize sleep depth and neuronal homeostasis, such as the slow oscillation and spindle EEG activity, and by reducing neurophysiological arousal during sleep (i.e., beta EEG activity). We examined cross-sectional differences in quantitative EEG characteristics of sleep, assessed with power spectral analysis, in 29 adults with type 2 diabetes treated with CPAP and 24 adults undergoing SHAM CPAP treatment (total n = 53). We then examined changes in spectral characteristics of sleep as the SHAM group crossed over to active CPAP treatment (n = 19). Polysomnography (PSG) from the CPAP titration night was used for the current analyses. Analyses focused on EEG frequencies associated with sleep maintenance and arousal. These included the slow oscillation (0.5–1 Hz), sigma activity (12–16 Hz, spindle activity), and beta activity (16–20 Hz) in F3, F4, C3, and C4 EEG channels. Whole night non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and the first period of NREM spectral activity were examined. Age and sex were included as covariates. There were no group differences between CPAP and SHAM in spectral characteristics of sleep architecture. However, SHAM cross-over to active CPAP was associated with an increase in relative 12–16 Hz sigma activity across the whole night and a decrease in average beta activity across the whole night. Relative slow oscillation power within the first NREM period decreased with CPAP, particularly for frontal channels. Sigma and beta activity effects did not differ by channel. These findings suggest that CPAP may preferentially enhance spindle activity and mitigate neurophysiological arousal. These findings inform the neurophysiological mechanisms of improved sleep with CPAP and the utility of quantitative EEG measures of sleep as a treatment probe of improvements in neurological and physical health with CPAP.