The bidirectional relation between emotional reactivity and sleep: From disruption to recovery.

Ellemarije Altena, Jean-Arthur Micoulaud-Franchi, Pierre-Alexis Geoffroy, Ernesto Sanz-Arigita, Stephanie Bioulac, Pierre Philip
Behavioral Neuroscience. 2016-01-01; 130(3): 336-350
DOI: 10.1037/bne0000128

PubMed
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Altena E(1), Micoulaud-Franchi JA(2), Geoffroy PA(3), Sanz-Arigita E(4), Bioulac S(5), Philip P(2).

Author information:
(1)USR CNRS 3413 SANPSY (Sommeil, Attention et Neuropsychiatrie), Université de Bordeaux.
(2)USR CNRS 3413 SANPSY (Sommeil, Attention et Neuropsychiatrie).
(3)Inserm.
(4)Radiology and Imaging Analysis Center, VU University Medical Centre.
(5)Centre Hospitalier Charles Perrens, Pôle Universitaire Psychiatrie Enfants et Adolescents.

Sleep disturbances are highly prevalent and greatly affect consecutive emotional
reactivity, while sleep quality itself can be strongly affected by reactions to
previous emotional events. In this review, we shed light on this bidirectional
relation through examples of pathology: insomnia and bipolar disorder. We show
that both experimental sleep deprivation and insomnia are related to increased
emotional reactivity and increased amygdala activation upon emotional stimuli
presentation, and that particularly Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep is important
for emotional processing and reorganization of emotion-specific brain activity.
Increased emotional reactivity affects REM sleep quality and sleep spindles,
while REM sleep is particularly affected in insomnia, possibly related to
condition-specific hyperarousal levels. Normal sleep onset deactivation of brain
regions important for emotional processing (amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex
(ACC)) is further affected in insomnia. In bipolar disorder, sleep disturbances
are common in both symptomatic and nonsymptomatic phases. Both amygdala and ACC
volume and function are affected in bipolar disorder, with the ACC showing
phase-dependent resting state activity differences. Deficient Gamma-aminobutyric
acid (GABA) GABA-ergic activity of this region might play a role in sleep
disturbances and their influence on emotional reactivity, given the inhibitory
role of GABA on brain activity during sleep and its deficiency in both bipolar
disorder and insomnia. Promising findings of normalizing brain activity in both
insomnia and bipolar disorder upon treatment may inspire a focus on treatment
studies investigating the normalization of sleep, emotional reactivity, and their
corresponding brain activity patterns. (PsycINFO Database Record

 

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