The development of nuchal atonia associated with active (REM) sleep in fetal sheep: presence of recurrent fractal organization

The behavioral state of active or rapid eye movement sleep (REMS) is dominant during fetal life and may play an important role in brain development. One marker of this state in fetal sheep is neck nuchal muscle atonia (NA). We observed burst within burst NA patterns suggestive of recurrent fractal organization in continuous 13 day in utero recordings of NA during the third trimester. Consistent with fractal renewal processes, the cumulative mean and standard deviation (SD) diverged over this time and the tail of NA distributions fit a stable Lévy law with exponents that remained invariant over the periods of development examined. The Hurst exponent, a measure of self-affine fractals, indicated that long-range correlations among NA intervals were present throughout development. A conserved complex fractal structure is apparent in NA which may help elucidate ambiguities in defining fetal states as well as some unique properties of fetal REMS.