Sleep: a royal road to pathophysiology.
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Depressive Disorder↗
Biomedical subjects
J C Gillin
Publications and source records attributed to J C Gillin.
Muscarinic supersensitivity of anterior pituitary ACTH and B-endorphin release in major depressive illness.
Subjects with major depressive illness had greater increases in plasma concentrations of ACTH and B-endorphin immunoreactivity in response to central muscarinic stimulation by physostigmine, than did normal control subjects, or psychiatric control subjects without major depressive illness. These findings provide further evidence for muscarinic receptor supersensitivity in depression and may implicate an abnormality of peptide physiology in the pathogenesis of depression.
Adrenocorticotropic Hormone↗
Sociodemographic predictors of temperament and character.
The Unified Biosocial Theory of Personality postulates that human personality is organized around four temperaments - Novelty Seeking, Harm Avoidance, Reward Dependence, and Persistence - and three characters - Self-Directedness, Cooperativeness, and Self-Transcendence. The objective of the present study was to investigate the influence of sociodemographic factors on temperament and character without the confounding influence of mental disorders. Volunteers (n=94) did not meet criteria for any Axis I and Axis II diagnosis, had no first-degree relatives with mental disorders, and were medically healthy. After giving written informed consent, volunteers completed the Temperament and Character Inventory. Analyses were conducted to determine the degree of association of each sociodemographic factor (i.e., age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, educational attainment, and occupational status) to personality dimension, while controlling for possible interactions with other sociodemographic factors. Partial correlation analysis showed a significant association between gender and Reward Dependence, and occupational status was significantly related to Reward Dependence, Cooperativeness, and Self-Transcendence. Stepwise regression analysis indicated that gender and occupational status were significant predictors of Reward Dependence. Occupational status was the only predictor of Cooperativeness and Self-Transcendence. These data suggest that sociodemographic factors should be considered in studies investigating temperaments and characters as defined by the Unified Biosocial Theory of Personality.
Adult↗
Sleep estimation from wrist activity in patients with major depression.
Actigraphy has been used to monitor individuals' sleep and wakefulness patterns without laboratory confinement. To date, its validity in monitoring sleep and wakefulness among patients with major depressive episodes has not been systematically examined. The present study investigated whether the normative criteria of the Actigraph Data Analysis Software, initially optimized for healthy individuals, could score wrist-activity data accurately in a sample of depressed patients. Application of the normative algorithm yielded a correlation coefficient of 0.85 and an average error of 35 min, comparing actigraphic and polysomnographic sleep estimates. The algorithm optimized for this sample provided a correlation coefficient of 0.81 and an error of 6 minutes. For both algorithms, agreement for individual comparisons varied substantially. These findings suggest that scoring criteria optimized on wrist-activity data of healthy young adults may not produce optimal results for patients characterized with major depressive episodes.
Adult↗
Polysomnography and depressive symptoms in primary alcoholics with and without a lifetime diagnosis of secondary depression and in patients with primary major depression.
BACKGROUND: There is evidence suggesting that there is: (1) additive polysomnographic effects of alcoholism and depression; and (2) elevated baseline REM density in primary alcoholics with (PASD) and without lifetime history of secondary depression (NPA). METHODS: 23 PASDs, 59 NPAs, and 23 primary major depression patients (PMD) underwent polysomnography. Any drinking within 3 months after a 1-month inpatient alcohol rehabilitation defined relapse. RESULTS: PASDs' polysomnography was more like NPAs than PMDs. Polysomnography reflected 3-month sobriety status more than diagnosis. LIMITATIONS: Not all PASD's met full major depression criteria upon admission. CONCLUSIONS: Alcoholism affected polysomnography more than depression. Elevated admission REM density predicted 3-month relapse in PASDs and NPAs.
Adult↗
Electroencephalographic sleep and natural killer activity in depressed patients and control subjects.
Insomnia is associated with a reduction of natural killer (NK) activity in depression independent of the severity of other depressive symptoms. This study extends these findings by exploring the relationship between objective electroencephalographic (EEG) assessment of sleep and values of NK activity in depressed patients (n = 23) and in control subjects (n = 17). The sleep EEG parameters total sleep time, sleep efficiency, and duration of nonREM sleep were each positively correlated with NK activity in the depressed patients and in the control subjects, demonstrating similar relationships between the amount of sleep and NK activity in the separate groups. These observations support the hypothesis that sleep measures are associated with NK cytotoxicity, independent of the effects of severity of depressive symptoms or the presence of a mood disorder.
Adult↗
Partial sleep deprivation reduces natural killer cell activity in humans.
Sleep disturbance, measured by either subjective report or electroencephalographic (EEG) assessment of sleep, correlates with a reduction of natural killer (NK) cell activity in major depression. To test whether sleep loss independent of mood disturbance alters daytime values of cellular immune function, the effect of late-night partial sleep deprivation on NK cell activity was studied in 23 medically and psychiatrically healthy male volunteers. After a night of sleep deprivation between 3 and 7 AM, NK cell activity was reduced in 18 of the 23 subjects with average lytic activity reduced significantly (p < .01) to a level 72% of the mean of three separate baseline values. After a night of resumed nocturnal sleep, NK cell activity had returned to baseline levels. These data implicate sleep in the modulation of natural immunity and demonstrate that even modest disturbances of sleep produce a reduction of NK cell activity.
Adult↗
Explorations in the relationship of dream sleep to schizophrenia using positron emission tomography.
This study explored the relationship between rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and schizophrenia using positron emission tomography. Glucose use was compared between 49 schizophrenics, 30 awake controls and 12 controls in REM sleep. Assessment of the frequency and locations of brain areas showing significant differences suggested that REM did not resemble schizophrenia. Schizophrenics were between the higher awake controls and lower REM controls in corpus callosum glucose use. Hallucinating schizophrenics showed lower left caudate glucose use.
Adult↗
The pupil dark response in narcolepsy.
The pupil dark response and maintenance of pupil area in darkness were compared in seven narcoleptic patients and 14 age-matched normal volunteers. Onset and degree of miosis after maximal pupil dilation in darkness were similar in the two groups, although three narcoleptic patients and no normal volunteers fell asleep during the experiment. The results of this study contradict earlier suggestions that pupillography can be used to distinguish normal individuals in family studies of narcoleptic patients.
Adolescent↗