ESTIMATION OF THE TIME-COURSE OF SLOW-WAVE SLEEP OVER THE NIGHT IN DEPRESSED-PATIENTS - EFFECTS OF CLOMIPRAMINE AND CLINICAL-RESPONSE

The distribution of slow-wave activity during sleep has been analyzed using a method related to the two-process model of sleep regulation. T his method is applied to the analyses of data collected from 21 inpati ents with unipolar depression who received the antidepressant clomipra mine (CMI) in a pulse-lending protocol. CMI infusion was found to redi stribute slow-wave activity, producing more concentration in the early part of the night, and also significantly reduced the fluctuation in slow-wave power as a function of time. These measures also distinguish ed clinical responders from the nonresponders. Drug responders had a s ignificant redistribution of slow-wave activity to the earlier part of the night as compared to nonresponders. This suggests that measures o f the distribution of slow-wave activity over the night may represent a good measure of clinical response to antidepressant therapy and have implications for the interpretation of the two-process model and slee p in depression.