Basic Neuroscience Division, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA.
Lurie Center for Autism, Massachusetts General Hospital, Lexington, MA, USA.
Neuropsychopharmacology. 2020 Jan;45(1):90-103. doi: 10.1038/s41386-019-0409-5. Epub 2019 May 6.
Sleep has numerous advantages for aligning clinical and preclinical (basic neuroscience) studies of neuropsychiatric illness. Sleep has high translational relevance, because the same endpoints can be studied in humans and laboratory animals. In addition, sleep experiments are conducive to continuous data collection over long periods (hours/days/weeks) and can be based on highly objective neurophysiological measures. Here, we provide a translationally-oriented review on what is currently known about sleep in the context of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including ASD-related conditions, thought to have genetic, environmental, or mixed etiologies. In humans, ASD is frequently associated with comorbid medical conditions including sleep disorders. Animal models used in the study of ASD frequently recapitulate dysregulation of sleep and biological (diurnal, circadian) rhythms, suggesting common pathophysiologies across species. As our understanding of the neurobiology of ASD and sleep each become more refined, it is conceivable that sleep-derived metrics may offer more powerful biomarkers of altered neurophysiology in ASD than the behavioral tests currently used in humans or lab animals. As such, the study of sleep in animal models for ASD may enable fundamentally new insights on the condition and represent a basis for strategies that enable the development of more effective therapeutics.
睡眠对神经精神疾病的临床和临床前（基础神经科学）研究具有诸多优势。睡眠具有很高的转化相关性，因为相同的终点可以在人类和实验室动物中进行研究。此外，睡眠实验有利于长时间（小时/天/周）连续收集数据，并且可以基于高度客观的神经生理学测量。在这里，我们提供了一个转化导向的综述，介绍了目前已知的自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）背景下的睡眠情况，包括被认为具有遗传、环境或混合病因的与 ASD 相关的情况。在人类中，ASD 常伴有睡眠障碍等合并症。在 ASD 研究中使用的动物模型经常重现睡眠和生物（昼夜节律）节律的失调，表明在不同物种中有共同的病理生理学。随着我们对 ASD 的神经生物学和睡眠的理解变得更加精细，可以想象，与目前在人类或实验室动物中使用的行为测试相比，源自睡眠的指标可能提供更有力的 ASD 神经生理学改变的生物标志物。因此，ASD 动物模型中的睡眠研究可能为该疾病提供全新的见解，并为开发更有效的治疗策略提供基础。
