Borbála Blaskovich 1,2 , Richárd Reichardt 2 , Ferenc Gombos 3,4 , Victor I Spoormaker 1 , Péter Simor 5,6 Show Affiliations »
Abstract
STUDY OBJECTIVES: Frequent nightmares have a high prevalence and constitute a risk factor for psychiatric conditions, but their pathophysiology is poorly understood. Our aim was to examine sleep architecture and electroencephalographic markers-with a specific focus on state transitions-related to sleep regulation and hyperarousal in participants with frequent nightmares (NM participants) versus healthy controls. METHODS: Healthy controls and NM participants spent two consecutive nights in the sleep laboratory. Second night spectral power during NREM to REM sleep (pre-REM) and REM to NREM (post-REM) transitions as well as during NREM and REM periods were evaluated for 22 NM participants compared to 22 healthy controls with a similar distribution of age, gender, and dream recall frequency. RESULTS: We found significant differences between the groups in the pre-REM to post-REM changes in low- and high-frequency domains. NM participants experienced a lower amount of slow-wave sleep and showed increased beta and gamma power during NREM and pre-REM periods. No difference was present during REM and post-REM phases. Furthermore, while increased pre-REM high-frequency power seems to be mainly driven by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom intensity, decreased low-frequency activity occurred regardless of PTSD symptom severity. CONCLUSION: Our findings indicate that NM participants had increased high-frequency spectral power during NREM and pre-REM periods, as well as relatively reduced slow frequency and increased fast frequency spectral power across pre-and post-REM periods. This combination of reduced sleep-protective activity and increased hyperarousal suggests an imbalance between sleep regulatory and wake-promoting systems in NM participants. © Sleep Research Society 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Sleep Research Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail journals.permissions@oup.com.
STUDY OBJECTIVES: Frequent nightmares have a high prevalence and constitute a risk factor for psychiatric conditions , but their pathophysiology is poorly understood. Our aim was to examine sleep architecture and electroencephalographic markers-with a specific focus on state transitions-related to sleep regulation and hyperarousal in participants with frequent nightmares (NM participants ) versus healthy controls. METHODS: Healthy controls and NM participants spent two consecutive nights in the sleep laboratory. Second night spectral power during NREM to REM sleep (pre-REM) and REM to NREM (post-REM) transitions as well as during NREM and REM periods were evaluated for 22 NM participants compared to 22 healthy controls with a similar distribution of age, gender, and dream recall frequency. RESULTS: We found significant differences between the groups in the pre-REM to post-REM changes in low- and high-frequency domains. NM participants experienced a lower amount of slow-wave sleep and showed increased beta and gamma power during NREM and pre-REM periods. No difference was present during REM and post-REM phases. Furthermore, while increased pre-REM high-frequency power seems to be mainly driven by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD ) symptom intensity, decreased low-frequency activity occurred regardless of PTSD symptom severity. CONCLUSION: Our findings indicate that NM participants had increased high-frequency spectral power during NREM and pre-REM periods, as well as relatively reduced slow frequency and increased fast frequency spectral power across pre-and post-REM periods. This combination of reduced sleep-protective activity and increased hyperarousal suggests an imbalance between sleep regulatory and wake-promoting systems in NM participants . © Sleep Research Society 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Sleep Research Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail journals.permissions@oup.com.
Entities: Disease
Species
Keywords:
EEG; PTSD; nightmare; pathophysiology; sleep
Year: 2020
PMID： 31556954 DOI： 10.1093/sleep/zsz201
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Sleep ISSN： 0161-8105 Impact factor: 5.849