During sleep, sensory stimuli rarely trigger a behavioral response or conscious perception. However, it remains unclear whether sleep inhibits specific aspects of sensory processing, such as feedforward or feedback signaling. Here, we presented auditory stimuli (for example, click-trains, words, music) during wakefulness and sleep in patients with epilepsy, while recording neuronal spiking, microwire local field potentials, intracranial electroencephalogram and polysomnography. Auditory stimuli induced robust and selective spiking and high-gamma (80–200 Hz) power responses across the lateral temporal lobe during both non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Sleep only moderately attenuated response magnitudes, mainly affecting late responses beyond early auditory cortex and entrainment to rapid click-trains in NREM sleep. By contrast, auditory-induced alpha–beta (10–30 Hz) desynchronization (that is, decreased power), prevalent in wakefulness, was strongly reduced in sleep. Thus, extensive auditory responses persist during sleep whereas alpha–beta power decrease, likely reflecting neural feedback processes, is deficient. More broadly, our findings suggest that feedback signaling is key to conscious sensory processing.

在睡眠期间，感官刺激很少会触发行为反应或有意识的感知。然而，目前尚不清楚睡眠是否会抑制感觉处理的特定方面，例如前馈或反馈信号。在这里，我们展示了癫痫患者清醒和睡眠期间的听觉刺激（例如，点击火车、文字、音乐），同时记录神经元尖峰脉冲、微线局部场电位、颅内脑电图和多导睡眠图。在非快速眼动 (NREM) 和快速眼动 (REM) 睡眠期间，听觉刺激在外侧颞叶引起强烈和选择性尖峰脉冲和高伽马 (80–200 Hz) 功率响应。睡眠仅适度减弱反应幅度，主要影响早期听觉皮层以外的晚期反应和 NREM 睡眠中对快速点击列车的夹带。相比之下，清醒时普遍存在的听觉诱导的 alpha-beta (10-30 Hz) 去同步化（即功率下降）在睡眠中明显减少。因此，广泛的听觉反应在睡眠期间持续存在，而 alpha-beta 功率下降，可能反映了神经反馈过程，是有缺陷的。更广泛地说，我们的研究结果表明反馈信号是有意识的感觉处理的关键。