CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EMOTIONAL PHENOMEN A IN THE DREAMS OF PATIENTSWITH TEMPORAL-LOBE EPILEPSY

In humans, a detailed description of the sensorial, vegetative, emotio nal, mental and hallucinatory components of dreams, during the rapid e ye movements (REMs) of REM sleep, has been carried out. Yet, little ha s been studied about the neural integration of each of these component s. There is evidence in experimental animals that the limbic system is phasically activated during the REMs of REM sleep. Although this sugg ests that the limbic system participates in the generation of the emot ional and hallucinatory components of dreams, it has not been analyzed in humans. Since several limbic structures are located in the tempora l lobe, in this study we analyze and compare the emotional content of dreams reported by temporal lobe epileptic patients and healthy volunt ary subjects. Polysomnographic recordings were performed during three consecutive nights in 20 patients diagnosed with temporal robe epileps y. Twelve were treatment free and eight, medicated with antidepressive s and/or antiepileptics. Additionally, ten healthy voluntary subjects were also recorded. All subjects were awakened the third night after 3 am, and during a REM sleep episode. A verbal description of their dre ams was tape recorded and written down for further evaluation of the e motional content in terms of type, number, frequency and intensity. Th e morning after the recording, a scale, specially designed rn our labo ratory to quantitatively evaluate the emotional impressions of the sub jects about their dreams, was applied. Our results show that the epile ptic patients presented more unpleasant emotions in their dreams than the controls. Pharmacologically treated patients, described their drea ms as being significantly more vivid than the non-treated ones and tha n controls. All epileptic patients presented a lower number of differe nt emotions per dream, with a lower frequency of appearance, but with a higher intensity. Both, treated and non-treated patients, showed a s ignificantly higher density of REMs than controls. Our results support the hypothesis that the limbic structures participate in the cerebral integration of the emotional components of dreams. It was also confir med that an increased REMs density is in close relation to the emotion al intensity of dreams.