Charting infant sleep cycle development using actigraphy: longitudinal evidence for ultradian cycle lengthening within the first year of life from 35,000 hours of sleep
Clicks: 3
ID: 317250
2026
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This
article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score —
reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
Reader Engagement
Steady Performance
0.6
/100
3 views
2 readers
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
SteadyRanked #131 of 189 articles by views in Sleep & breathing = Schlaf & Atmung
Most read
Least read
Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 189 in total.
Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet mintedCreate a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.
5
SUSD
one-off · no wallet required
Abstract
Sleep is marked by ultradian cycles coinciding with the alternation of rapid eye movement (REM) and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. These sleep cycles are a striking feature exhibited from infancy through adulthood, yet their underlying mechanisms and functional relevance remain elusive, calling for large-scale longitudinal studies. Here we leverage Locomotor Inactivity During Sleep (LIDS), an accessible marker of sleep cycles in adults, to chart ultradian sleep cycle dynamics in infants at scale. Specifically, we analyzed $>35,000$ hours of sleep from a longitudinal dataset of $152$ infants with actigraphy at 3, 6, and 12 months of age. Using complementary signal processing techniques, we demonstrate the existence of rhythmic patterns in infant LIDS with cycle lengths of $\sim 60$ minutes. Cycles were shorter in infants than parents (62 min 95%CI $[56,67]$ vs. 81 min $[74,88]$) and increased by $\sim 10$ min from $3$ to $12$ months, mirroring previous results in smaller samples for NREM-REM sleep cycles. This increase was partially mediated by increasing sleep bout duration ($1.0$ min/h $[0.9,1.2]$). Longer cycles were also found in infants still breastfed at $12$ months ($+2.5$ min $[0.4,4.5]$) and their breastfeeding mothers ($+6.7$ min $[0.5,12.9]$). Furthermore, inactivity was lower at sleep onset, declined more rapidly and showed a greater amplitude in infants than parents, but all three parameters began to mature already within the first year. Overall, our results support a link between patterns in limb inactivity and sleep cycle physiology in infancy, underscoring the potential of studying these in large-scale cohorts for developmental and health outcomes.
| Reference Key |
openalex_W7164641430
Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using
SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
|
|---|---|
| Authors | G. H. Hammad, Sarah F. Schoch, Max Engelmann, Zoe Spock, Salome Kurth, Eva C. Winnebeck |
| Journal | Sleep & breathing = Schlaf & Atmung |
| Year | 2026 |
| DOI |
10.1093/sleep/zsag161
|
| URL | |
| Keywords | Keywords not found |
Citations
No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org
Comments
No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.