RESEARCH INTERESTS

Human Sleep Research
- sleep deprivation and performance
- cognition during sleep and wakefulness
- sleep onset processes
- Insomnia
- Sleep and aging
- topographic recording and analysis of EEG and event-related potentials (ERPs)
- quantitative EEG analysis (power spectral analysis)
- non-REM sleep phasic events: K-complexes and spindles

Today, many people intentionally cut down on sleep in order to make more time in the day for work and social demands. In addition, many people experience sleep disorders that disrupt sleep onset, sleep maintenance, or sleep efficiency. In all of these cases, the sleeper is experiencing a type of partial sleep loss. You need not pull and "all-nighter" to feel the ill effects on the next day! It is important to understand the extent of neurophysiological impairment resulting from this degree of sleep loss and the corresponding effect on daytime performance. This has widespread implications for work and scholastic performance, driving safety, military operations, and quality of life.

In order to investigate this relationship between sleep and daytime functioning, I employ a host of measures, including behavioural, EEG and event-related potentials (ERPs), which complement one another in the investigation of brain function and human behaviour. ERPs may be used to investigate cognitive processes that are associated with changing levels of arousal, such as speed of processing and attention. Both EEG and ERPs may be recorded from multiple electrode sites across the scalp, providing a topographic picture or "map" of on-going brain activity.

This general approach allows for investigation of moment-to-moment changes in brain physiology and performance during varying levels of sleepiness. These methods allow me to investigate a number of fascinating questions. Current research projects in the laboratory include: daytime consequences of continuous sleep restriction; effects of sleep fragmentation on daytime functioning; brain processing during sleep onset in healthy adults and patients with insomnia; the role of sleep in memory consolidation; and the benefits of a daytime nap across the lifespan.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

Cote K. Ch.329. Sleep, Biological Rhythms and Performance. Encyclopedia of Human Behavior, 2nd Ed., V.S. Ramachandran (Editor-in-Chief), Academic Press, 2518 pages 2012.

MacLean, M.H. Arnell, K.M., Cote, K.A. (2012). Resting EEG in alpha and beta bands predicts individual differences in AB magnitude. Brain and Cognition, 78:218-29.

Yasuda, K., Ray, L.B., and Cote, K.A. (2011). Anticipatory attention during the sleep onset period. Consciousness & Cognition, 20: 912-19.

Kertesz, R.S. & Cote, K.A. (2011). Event-related potentials reveal failure to inhibit stimuli during the pre-sleep waking period for patients with sleep-onset insomnia.Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 9, 68–85.

Perlis, M., Gehrman, P., Terzano, M., Cote, K., and Riemann D. Sleep EEG in patients with Primary Insomnia. In: Insomnia: Diagnosis and Treatment. Eds. Michael J. Sateia, Daniel Buysse. Informa Healthcare USA, Inc. Chapter 6 pp.50-64. 2010. Essex UK.

Cote, K.A., Milner C.E., Smith, B.A., Aubin, A.J., Greason, T.A., Cuthbert, B.P., Wiebe, S., Duffus, S.E.G. (2009). CNS arousal, attention, and neurobehavioural performance in a short-term sleep restriction paradigm. Journal of Sleep Research 18, 291-303.

Milner, C.E., Cuthbert, B.P., Kertesz, R.S., & Cote, K.A. (2009). Sensory processing in waking, non-REM, and REM sleep states in good and poor sleepers. NeuroReport, 20, 331-336.
           
Milner, C.E., & Cote, K.A. (2009). Benefits of napping in healthy adults: Impact of nap length, time of day, age, and experience with napping. Journal of Sleep Research, 18, 272-281.

Cote, K.A., Milner C.E., Osip, S.L., Baker, M.L. & Cuthbert B.P. (2008). Physiological arousal and attention during a week of continuous sleep restriction. Physiology and Behavior, 95, 353-364.

Milner C.E., & Cote, K.A. (2008). A dose-response investigation of the benefits of napping in healthy young, middle, and older adult age groups. Sleep and Biological Rhythms 6, 2-15.

Fogel S.M., Smith, C.T., & Cote K.A. (2007). Dissociable learning-dependent changes in REM and non-REM sleep in declarative and procedural memory systems. Behavioral Brain Research, 180, 48-61.

Fogel, S.M., Nader, R., Cote, K.A., & Smith, C.T. (2007). Sleep spindles and learning potential. Behavioual Neuroscience, 121, 1-10.

Milner, C.E., Fogel, S.M., & Cote, K.A. (2006). Habitual napping moderates motor performance improvements following a short daytime nap. Biological Psychology, 73, 141-156.

Schmidt, L.A., Cote, K.A., Santesso, D.L., & Milner, C.E. (2003). Frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) alpha asymmetry during sleep: Stability and its relation to affective style. Emotion, 3, 401-407.

Cote, K.A., Milner, C.E., Osip S.L., Baxter, K.D., & Ray, L.B. (2003). Waking quantitative Electroencephalogram and auditory event-related potentials following experimentally-induced sleep fragmentation. Sleep, 26, 687-694. Commentary: Colrain I.M. (2003). Novel measures of daytime central nervous system function following sleep disruption. Sleep, 26, 650-651.