Department of Defense Biotechnology High Performance Computing Software Applications Institute, Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, United States Army Medical Research and Development Command, MD.
The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., MD.
Sleep. 2020 Jan 13;43(1). doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsz207.
We examined electroencephalogram (EEG) spectral power to study abnormalities in regional brain activity in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during sleep. We aimed to identify sleep EEG markers of PTSD that were reproducible across nights and subsamples of our study population.
Seventy-eight combat-exposed veteran men with (n = 31) and without (n = 47) PTSD completed two consecutive nights of high-density EEG recordings in a laboratory. We performed spectral-topographical EEG analyses on data from both nights. To assess reproducibility, we used the first 47 consecutive participants (18 with PTSD) for initial discovery and the remaining 31 participants (13 with PTSD) for replication.
In the discovery analysis, compared with non-PTSD participants, PTSD participants exhibited (1) reduced delta power (1-4 Hz) in the centro-parietal regions during nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and (2) elevated high-frequency power, most prominent in the gamma band (30-40 Hz), in the antero-frontal regions during both NREM and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. These findings were consistent across the two study nights, with reproducible trends in the replication analysis. We found no significant group differences in theta power (4-8 Hz) during REM sleep and sigma power (12-15 Hz) during N2 sleep.
The reduced centro-parietal NREM delta power, indicating reduced sleep depth, and the elevated antero-frontal NREM and REM gamma powers, indicating heightened central arousal, are potential objective sleep markers of PTSD. If independently validated, these putative EEG markers may offer new targets for the development of sleep-specific PTSD diagnostics and interventions.
我们通过检查脑电图（EEG）频谱功率来研究创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）患者睡眠期间大脑区域活动的异常。我们旨在确定 PTSD 的睡眠 EEG 标志物，这些标志物在我们研究人群的不同夜间和子样本中具有可重复性。
78 名有（n=31）和无（n=47）创伤后应激障碍的参战老兵男性在实验室中连续完成了两个晚上的高密度 EEG 记录。我们对两个晚上的数据进行了频谱-地形脑电图分析。为了评估可重复性，我们使用前 47 名连续参与者（18 名患有 PTSD）进行初步发现，其余 31 名参与者（13 名患有 PTSD）进行复制。
在发现分析中，与非 PTSD 参与者相比，PTSD 参与者在非快速眼动（NREM）睡眠期间表现出（1）中顶区 delta 功率（1-4 Hz）降低，（2）高频功率升高，在前额区域最为明显（30-40 Hz），在 NREM 和快速眼动（REM）睡眠期间。这些发现与两个研究晚上一致，在复制分析中具有可重复的趋势。我们在 REM 睡眠期间发现 theta 功率（4-8 Hz）和 N2 睡眠期间的 sigma 功率（12-15 Hz）在两组之间没有显著差异。
中顶区 NREM delta 功率降低，表明睡眠深度降低，前额区 NREM 和 REM 伽马功率升高，表明中枢唤醒度增加，这可能是 PTSD 的潜在客观睡眠标志物。如果独立验证，这些假定的 EEG 标志物可能为睡眠特异性 PTSD 诊断和干预提供新的目标。
