ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHIC SLEEP PROFILES IN SINGLE-EPISODE AND RECURRENT UNIPOLAR FORMS OF MAJOR DEPRESSION .1. COMPARISON DURING ACUTE DEPRESSIVE STATES
Me. Thase et al., ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHIC SLEEP PROFILES IN SINGLE-EPISODE AND RECURRENT UNIPOLAR FORMS OF MAJOR DEPRESSION .1. COMPARISON DURING ACUTE DEPRESSIVE STATES, Biological psychiatry, 38(8), 1995, pp. 506-515
The current study uas conducted to examine if recurrent depression is
associated with more severe disturbances of all-night EEG sleep profil
es than single-episode depressions. Unmedicated sex- and age-matched g
roups of 22 single-episode (SE) and 44 recurrent unipolar (RU) outpati
ents with DSM-III-R/SADS/RDC major depression underwent 2 consecutive
nights of EEG sleep recording. Multivariate analyses of covariance (MA
NCOVAs) and/or analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) were performed on six
sets of sleep measures. Recurrent unipolar depression was associated w
ith significantly increased phasic REM sleep, as well as increased REM
counts on the second night of study. Recurrent depression also was as
sociated with significantly poorer sleep efficiency, although the grou
ps did not show consistent differences in sleep architecture or slow-w
ave sleep. Our findings generally support the hypothesis that recurren
t depression is associated with a more severe neurophysiologic substra
te than phenotypically similar SE cases. Results are, for the most par
t, compatible, with Post's (1992) model of illness progression, partic
ularly with respect to greater disturbances of state-dependent sleep a
bnormalities in the RU cases. Longitudinal studies are needed to confi
rm the evolution of such changes prospectively.