Coordinated Brain-Heart Dynamics During Human NREM Sleep

Abstract

Communication between the brain and cardiovascular system is increasingly recognized as a fundamental determinant of health, yet the mechanisms coordinating neural and cardiac rhythms remain poorly understood. Sleep provides a unique physiological state for investigating neurovisceral integration because cortical slow oscillations (SOs), thalamocortical sleep spindles, and autonomic activity undergo profound reorganization during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. We analyzed overnight high-density electroencephalography and electrocardiography recordings from 30 healthy adults and quantified interactions among SOs, sleep spindles, cardiac R-peaks, heart rate variability (HRV), spectral slope, and Lempel-Ziv complexity. To assess integrated brain-heart coordination, we developed a Joint Phase-Amplitude Coupling (JPAC) metric that quantifies the corelation between SO phase-dependent modulation of spindle amplitude and cardiac timing. SO-spindle coupling showed the expected fronto-central distribution but was not significantly related to autonomic or cortical state markers. In contrast, SO-R-peak coupling and JPAC systematically tracked physiological state. Stronger JPAC was associated with higher high-frequency HRV, steeper spectral slopes, and lower neural complexity, indicating enhanced coupling during synchronized, parasympathetically dominated NREM sleep. These findings demonstrate coordinated organization of cortical, thalamocortical, and cardiac rhythms within a common oscillatory framework and identify NREM sleep as a state and potential treatment target of large-scale neurovisceral integration.