Maintenance of antidepressant effect of sleep deprivation with the help of lithium.

The antidepressant effect of sleep deprivation is often not longer than 1 or 2 days. Therefore we investigated systematically the combination of lithium and sleep deprivation on 26 depressive patients (ICD/DSM 296). We measured the depression scores with the Hamilton Depression Scale and the Brief Depression Rating Scale on 4 days. A comparison between sleep deprivation with and without lithium showed a highly significant difference on the 2nd and 3rd days after sleep deprivation. The positive antidepressant effect remained with those who received lithium.