Abstract
In healthy infants less than six months old the hand dorsum temperature rises just before and during stage REM compared with respective preceding level (immature pattern), whereas in subjects of six months and over it falls just before stage REM and continues to fall during stage REM (adult pattern; Matsumoto et al., 1975). The dynamics of hand dorsum temperature during nocturnal sleep have been studied in severely mentally retarded infants aged 0-5 years (n = 25). All subjects revealed both adult and immature patterns. The adult pattern tended to increase with age from the 0- to the 2-year-old group.
