Sleep specific alpha-activity indicates the progress of idiopathic Parkinson's disease

Objective: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) as a treatment option for various neurological disorders also allows to record local field potentials (LFP) from subcortical regions. Using coherence analysis between surface-EEG and LFPs from Globus pallidus in dystonia patients we recently characterized an alpha-activity in sleep stages N2 and N3 (Salih et al., 2009). Based on our findings we discussed whether this alpha-activity could act as a specific signature of the motor system in human non-REM sleep. Here we test whether patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) show alterations of this alpha-activity. Meth…