Brown C C, Horrom N J, Wagman A M
Waking Sleeping. 1979 Apr;3(2):101-8.
Eighteen female subjects with demonstrated laboratory sleep onset latency greater than 20 minutes for two nights participated in this double blind study of the effectiveness of l-tryptophan as a hypnotic. Standard sleep recordings were made on 10 nights over a 3 month period with lights out occurring 20 minutes after drug administration (placebo, 1 gm. l-tryptophan, 3 gms. l-tryptophan). Neither dose of l-tryptophan differed from placebo as to the amount of REM, SWS or wakefulness, but 3 gms. significantly reduced sleep onset latency on some of the nights. Those subjects with latencies longer than 40 mins. had the greatest reduction in latency with 3 gms. and also evidenced high levels of anxiety on the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale initially. Subjects with latency between 20 and 40 minutes appeared to receive the longest lasting hypnotic effect from the higher dose. Adaptation to the sleep lab took place across the entire 10 nights of the study. Therefore, valid comparisons between treatments in a sleep study extending over a number of nights should be made between temporally adjacent samples.
18名女性受试者两晚的实验室睡眠起始潜伏期均超过20分钟，她们参与了这项关于l-色氨酸作为催眠药有效性的双盲研究。在3个月的时间里，在10个晚上进行标准睡眠记录，熄灯时间在给药（安慰剂、1克l-色氨酸、3克l-色氨酸）后20分钟。两种剂量的l-色氨酸在快速眼动睡眠（REM）、慢波睡眠（SWS）或清醒时间方面与安慰剂均无差异，但3克l-色氨酸在某些晚上显著缩短了睡眠起始潜伏期。那些潜伏期超过40分钟的受试者，3克l-色氨酸使其潜伏期缩短最多，并且最初在泰勒显性焦虑量表上表现出较高的焦虑水平。潜伏期在20至40分钟之间的受试者似乎从较高剂量中获得了最持久的催眠效果。在整个为期10个晚上的研究过程中，受试者逐渐适应了睡眠实验室。因此，在一项持续多个晚上的睡眠研究中，各治疗组之间的有效比较应在时间上相邻的样本之间进行。
