Previous studies examining the associations between sleep hygiene practices and insomnia have produced inconsistent results. This study further investigates this issue by examining different domains of sleep hygiene separately. One hundred and six insomnia patients and 89 good sleepers participated in the study. Their sleep hygiene, sleep quality and insomnia severity were assessed with subjective rating scales. Among good sleepers, almost all domains of sleep hygiene correlated significantly with their sleep ratings. However, in insomnia patients, only the arousal-related behavior correlated with sleep ratings. The findings suggest that strategies in prevention and treatment of sleep disturbance may be different accordingly.

Inhibiting the responses to irrelevant stimuli is an essential component of human cognitive function. Pre-attentive auditory sensory gating (SG), an attenuated neural activation to the second identical stimulus, has been found to be related to the performance of higher-hierarchical brain function. However, it remains unclear whether other cortical regions, such as somatosensory cortex, also possess similar characteristics, or if such a relationship is modality-specific. This study used magnetoencephalography to record neuromagnetic responses to paired-pulse electrical stimulation to median nerve in 22 healthy participants. Somatosensory SG ratio and cortical brain oscillations were obtained and compared with the behavioral performance of inhibition control, as evaluated by somatosensory and auditory Go-Nogo tasks. The results showed that somatosensory P35m SG ratio correlated with behavioral performance of inhibition control. Such relationship was also established in relation to the auditory Go-Nogo task. Finally, a higher frequency value of evoked gamma oscillations was found to relate to a better somatosensory SG ability. In conclusion, our data provided an empirical link between automatic cortical inhibition and behavioral performance of attentive inhibition control. This study invites further research on the relationships among gamma oscillations, neurophysiological indices, and behavioral performance in clinical populations in terms of SG or cortical inhibition.

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