a Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy , Medical Center of the University of Freiburg , Freiburg , Germany.
b Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute (SCNi), Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience , University of Oxford , Oxford , England.
Behav Sleep Med. 2018 Nov-Dec;16(6):587-600. doi: 10.1080/15402002.2016.1253014. Epub 2016 Dec 14.
OBJECTIVE/BACKGROUND: Sleep-related attentional bias has been suggested to represent an important factor for the maintenance of chronic insomnia. However, little is known about potentially underlying psychological mechanisms such as threat or craving. As these are associated with distinguishable brain activation patterns, we performed a functional neuroimaging study.
PARTICIPANTS/METHODS: Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to investigate brain reactivity to sleep-related words in 20 patients with primary insomnia according to DSM-IV criteria and 35 good sleeper controls according to Research Diagnostic Criteria. In addition, an emotional Stroop task was performed in all participants outside the scanner to investigate sleep-related attentional bias.
Contrary to the hypotheses, patients with chronic insomnia did not differ from good sleeper controls in terms of threat- or craving-related brain reactivity to sleep-related words. In addition, the emotional Stroop task did not reveal any significant group difference in sleep-related attentional bias. Exploratory analyses did not show any significant correlations between brain reactivity/selective attention to sleep-related words and questionnaire scores/PSG parameters.
The results from the present study call into question that attentional bias to sleep-related stimuli is a core feature of chronic insomnia. Future studies may use pictorial stimuli and larger sample sizes for investigating sleep-related information processing in insomnia.
目的/背景：睡眠相关的注意力偏向被认为是维持慢性失眠的一个重要因素。然而，对于潜在的心理机制，如威胁或渴望，知之甚少。由于这些与可区分的大脑激活模式相关，我们进行了一项功能神经影像学研究。
参与者/方法：使用功能磁共振成像技术，对 20 名符合 DSM-IV 标准的原发性失眠患者和 35 名根据研究诊断标准的良好睡眠者进行了研究。此外，所有参与者在扫描仪外进行了情绪 Stroop 任务，以调查与睡眠相关的注意力偏向。
与假设相反，慢性失眠患者与良好睡眠者对照组在睡眠相关词语的威胁或渴望相关的大脑反应方面没有差异。此外，情绪 Stroop 任务也没有显示出睡眠相关注意力偏向的任何显著组间差异。探索性分析也没有显示出与睡眠相关词语的大脑反应/选择性注意力与问卷评分/PSG 参数之间的任何显著相关性。
本研究的结果质疑了对睡眠相关刺激的注意力偏向是慢性失眠的核心特征。未来的研究可能会使用图像刺激和更大的样本量来研究失眠症中的睡眠相关信息处理。
