Electroencephalographic Sleep in Young, Never-Medicated Schizophrenics

Sleep disturbance in mental health problems and neurodegenerative disease

“…The sleep disturbances appear to be an important part of the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. These effects have been consistently reported in drug-naïve patients, those who have withdrawn from medication, and those being treated with antipsychotics and other psychotropic medication 48,49…”

Sleep EEG Changes in Psychotic Disorders: Gender and Age Effects

“…The paper speed for all recordings was 10 mm/s, and a 50-pV signal was calibrated to produce a 10-mm deflection at a sensitivity setting of 5. The method of polysomnography and automated SWS and REM sleep analyses as well as the scoring reliability have been published previously [27,32]. All sleep was scored in 60-second epochs by rat ers blind to clinical data using standard criteria [33].…”

“…There is some evidence for gender-related differences in sleep parameters in young healthy subjects [16], as well as dur ing healthy aging [17]; nocturnal myoclonus and sleeprelated breathing disorders appear to be more prevalent in elderly males than in females [18], The age-dependent reductions in SWS appear to be more prominent in healthy male seniors [15], In depressive patients, sleep abnormalities tend to worsen with advancing age [ 19] and SWS deficits are more pronounced in males than in females [12,20,21], Apart from introducing potential methodological con founds, gender-and age-related variations in sleep physi ology may have important implications for the patho- physiological substrate of the major psychoses. It is well known that there are gender differences in the age of onset, symptomatology, natural course, treatment re sponse, familial transmission, and outcome, as well as the frequency of neurobiological abnormalities in schizophre nia; specifically, male schizophrenic patients have earlier onset, poorer treatment response, more frequent neuro psychological impairment, brain structural abnormalities on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and a more pro tracted course of illness [22][23][24], The gender differences in clinical profiles appear to be seen not only in schizo phrenia, but also in schizoaffective and affective disor ders, though they are less compelling [25,26], There is evidence that deficits in SWS may be associ ated with negative symptoms [27], neuropsychological impairment [28], and cerebral ventricular enlargement [29], It is possible, therefore, that male schizophrenic patients, who tend to have these features, may also be more likely to have SWS deficits. In order to examine this, we investigated the effects of gender and age as well as age-by-gender interactions on sleep continuity, archi tecture, and intranight distributions of SWS and REM sleep in 38 male and 23 female patients with functional psychoses.…”

Insomnia Comorbid to Severe Psychiatric Illness

“…The majority of studies indicate that slow wave sleep, NREM delta activity, and REM latency are reduced in schizophrenia, whether the patients are drug-naïve, acutely psychotic, or medicated and clinically stable (i.e., (55, 72, 78–85)). Some studies have found elevated REM density (16, 86), but previously treated and drug-naïve patients with schizophrenia typically exhibit normal REM density (79, 81, 84, 85, 87, 88). More recently, reduced spindle activity has been observed in schizophrenia relative to healthy adults (89).…”

“…A more recent study reported that spindle activity and spindle number were inversely related to both positive and negative symptoms on the PANSS, namely the stereotyped thinking, conceptual disorganization and hallucination subscales (89). With regard to negative symptoms, studies have largely reported an association between increased negative symptoms and reduced SWS duration, SWS percentage or delta activity (81, 101–105), although there have been some non-replications (79, 84, 89). Some investigations have also found REM latency (79, 98, 101) and REM density (106) to be inversely correlated with negative symptoms.…”