Clinical neurophysiology : official journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology
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Although patients with sleep bruxism (SB) show a higher incidence of rhythmic masticatory muscle activity (RMMA) during sleep than matched normal controls, they are good sleepers. Sleep macrostructure (e.g. total sleep time, sleep latency, number of awakenings or sleep stage shifts and sleep stage duration) is similar between groups. Differences in sleep microstructure between SB patients and normals have been investigated only in few studies. The aim of the present study was to quantify number of microarousals, K-complexes, K-alphas, EEG spindles, and the density of slow wave activity, in both groups, in order to better understand the pathophysiology of SB. ⋯ According to our observations, good sleep in SB patients is characterized by a low incidence of K-complexes or K-alphas and by the absence of any difference in other sleep microstructure variables or SWA.