Human brain-wide activation of sleep rhythms

During sleep, our brain undergoes highly synchronized activity, orchestrated by distinct neural rhythms. Little is known about the associated brain activation during these sleep rhythms, and even less about their functional implications. In this study, we investigated the brain-wide activation underlying human sleep rhythms by employing simultaneous electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging in 107 participants during nocturnal naps (first half of the night). We identified robust coupling between slow oscillations (SOs) and fast spindles during deep non-rapid eye movement sleep (N2/3 stages), with spindle peaks consistently occurring just before the SO UP-state. This SO-spindle coupling was linked to elevated activation in both the thalamus and hippocampus, alongside increased functional connectivity from the hippocampus to the thalamus and from the thalamus to the medial prefrontal cortex. An open-ended cognitive state decoding analysis suggested that these activations may relate to episodic memory processes, yet were distinct from task-related networks. Together, these findings highlight the thalamus as a key coordinator of hippocampal–cortical communication during sleep and provide new insights into the mechanisms by which synchronized sleep rhythms may support memory consolidation.