Duffy Jeanne F, Czeisler Charles A
Division of Sleep Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Neurosci Lett. 2002 Feb 1;318(3):117-20. doi: 10.1016/s0304-3940(01)02427-2.
Aging is associated with specific sleep complaints, including earlier awakening and decreased sleep consolidation at the end of the night. The circadian pacemaker influences sleep timing and consolidation, and it has been hypothesized that a change in the circadian timing system may contribute to age-related changes in sleep. Here, we examined the relationship between circadian period and wake time, circadian phase, and diurnal preference (morningness-eveningness) in older subjects, and found no significant correlation between those measures, in contrast to our findings from young subjects. These results provide further evidence that the interaction between the circadian system and sleep-wake timing is altered in aging, and suggest that a shortening of circadian period with age cannot account for the advanced circadian phase and earlier wake times of older subjects.
衰老与特定的睡眠问题相关，包括较早醒来以及夜间睡眠巩固能力下降。昼夜节律起搏器影响睡眠时间和巩固，并且据推测，昼夜节律系统的变化可能导致与年龄相关的睡眠变化。在此，我们研究了老年受试者的昼夜节律周期与醒来时间、昼夜节律相位和昼夜偏好（晨型-夜型）之间的关系，结果发现这些指标之间无显著相关性，这与我们在年轻受试者中的发现形成对比。这些结果进一步证明，衰老过程中昼夜节律系统与睡眠-觉醒时间之间的相互作用发生了改变，并表明随着年龄增长昼夜节律周期缩短并不能解释老年受试者提前的昼夜节律相位和较早的醒来时间。
