Summary
The structure of sleep in lowland visitors to altitudes greater than 4000 m is grossly disturbed. There are no data on sleep in long-term residents of high altitudes. This paper describes an electroencephalographic study of sleep in high altitude dwellers who were born in and are permanent residents of Cerro de Pasco in the Peruvian Andes, situated at 4330 m. Eight healthy male volunteers aged between 18 and 69 years were studied. Sleep was measured on three consecutive nights for each subject. Electroencephalographs, submental electromyographs and electro-oculograms were recorded. Only data from the third night were used in the analysis. The sleep patterns of these subjects resembled the normal sleep patterns described by others in lowlanders at sea level. There were significant amounts of slow wave sleep in the younger subjects and rapid eye movement sleep seemed unimpaired.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Agnew HW, Webb WB, Williams RL (1966) Sleep patterns in late middle aged males: an EEG study. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol 23:168–171
Goldenberg F, Richalet JP, Keromes A, Rathat C, Dando B (1985) Poor sleep induced by high altitude hypoxia. Effects of a thienodiazepine, brotizolam. In: Koella WP, Ruther E, Shultz H (eds) Sleep '84. Fischer, Stuttgart, pp 316–318
Kupfer DJ, Foster FG (1972) Interval between onset of sleep and rapid eye movement sleep as an indicator of depression. Lancet 11:684–868
Miles LE, Dement WC (1980) Sleep and ageing. Sleep 3:119–220
Nicholson A, Marks J (1983) Insomnia: a guide for medical practitioners. MTP Press, Lancaster
Nicholson AN, Smith PA, Stone BM, Bradwell AR, Coote JH (1988) Altitude insomnia: studies during an expedition to the Himalayas. Sleep 11:354–361
Pappenheimer JR (1977) Sleep and respiration of rats during hypoxia. J Physiol (Lond) 266:191–207
Pappenheimer JR (1984) Hypoxic insomnia: effects of carbon monoxide and acclimatisation. J Appl Physiol 57:1696–1703
Rechtschaffen A, Kales A (1968) A manual of standardized terminology, techniques and scoring system for sleep stages of human sleep. NIH publication no. 204. US Government Printing Office, Bethesda
Selvamurthy W, Raju VRK, Ranganathan S, Hegde KS, Ray US (1986) Sleep patterns at an altitude of 3500 meters. Int J Biometeorol 30:123–135
Severinghaus JW, Chiodi H, Eger ET, Brandstater B, Hornbein TF (1966) Cerebral blood flow in man at high altitude. Circ Res 19:274–282
Spiegel R (1981) Sleep and sleeplessness in advanced age. In: Weitzman ED (ed) Advances in sleep research, vol 5. MTP Press/Spectrum Jamaica, New York, pp 1–272
Tune GS (1969) Sleep and wakefulness in 509 normal human subjects. Br J Med Psychol 42:75–80
Williams RL, Agnew HW, Webb WB (1964) Sleep patterns in young adults: an EEG study. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol 17:376–381
Williams RL, Karacan I, Hursch CJ (1974) Electroencephalography of human sleep. Wiley, New York
Winslow RM, Monge CC (1987) Hypoxia, polycythaemia and chronic mountain sickness. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, pp 92–94
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Coote, J.H., Stone, B.M. & Tsang, G. Sleep of Andean high altitude natives. Europ. J. Appl. Physiol. 64, 178–181 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00717957
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00717957