Effects of antibiotics, minocycline and ampicillin, on human sleep.

The effects of two kinds of antibiotics, minocycline (MNC) and ampicillin (AB-PC), on human sleep were investigated on 19 healthy male students to test for a relationship between human sleep and protein synthesis. These drugs and placebos were capsulated identically in appearance and were given to the subjects using the single blind method. MNC has been proven to prevent protein synthesis whereas AB-PC does not inhibit protein synthesis, and both antibiotics are commonly used in clinical practice. With the administration of a single dose of 200 mg of MNC, an apparent decrease in slow wave sleep (SWS) was revealed on the drug night and the effects lasted through the following two consecutive nights being given a placebo. REM sleep was not reduced on all the recording nights. On the other hand, both SWS and REM sleep were not reduced with the administration of a single dose of 500 mg of AB-PC. These results are different from those previously obtained from animal experiments since many kinds of protein synthesis inhibitors have been proven to suppress mainly REM sleep in animals. It might be supposed that the species difference may be responsible for this difference, and that some proteins or polypeptides induce human sleep, especially SWS.