Department of Neurobiology and Department of Neurology of The Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
Neurosci Bull. 2020 Oct;36(10):1137-1146. doi: 10.1007/s12264-020-00473-y. Epub 2020 Feb 24.
Social defeat stress (SDS) plays a major role in the pathogenesis of psychiatric disorders like anxiety and depression. Sleep is generally considered to involve recovery of the brain from prior experience during wakefulness and is altered after acute SDS. However, the effect of acute SDS on sleep/wake behavior in mice varies between studies. In addition, whether sleep changes in response to stress contribute to anxiety is not well established. Here, we first investigated the effects of acute SDS on sleep/wake states in the active period in mice. Our results showed that total sleep time (time in rapid eye-movement [REM] and non-REM [NREM] sleep) increased in the active period after acute SDS. NREM sleep increased mainly during the first 3 h after SDS, while REM sleep increased at a later time. Then, we demonstrated that the increased NREM sleep had an anxiolytic benefit in acute SDS. Mice deprived of sleep for 1 h or 3 h after acute SDS remained in a highly anxious state, while in mice with ad libitum sleep the anxiety rapidly faded away. Altogether, our findings suggest an anxiolytic effect of NREM sleep, and indicate a potential therapeutic strategy for anxiety.
社交挫败应激（SDS）在焦虑和抑郁等精神疾病的发病机制中起着重要作用。睡眠通常被认为是大脑从清醒时的先前经验中恢复的过程，并且在急性 SDS 后会发生改变。然而，急性 SDS 对小鼠睡眠/觉醒行为的影响在不同的研究中有所不同。此外，睡眠变化是否对应激产生反应以及是否有助于焦虑还没有得到很好的确立。在这里，我们首先研究了急性 SDS 对小鼠活动期睡眠/觉醒状态的影响。我们的结果表明，急性 SDS 后活动期的总睡眠时间（快速眼动[REM]和非快速眼动[NREM]睡眠时间）增加。NREM 睡眠主要在 SDS 后 3 小时内增加，而 REM 睡眠则在稍后时间增加。然后，我们证明增加的 NREM 睡眠对急性 SDS 具有抗焦虑作用。急性 SDS 后剥夺 1 小时或 3 小时睡眠的小鼠仍处于高度焦虑状态，而在允许自由睡眠的小鼠中，焦虑迅速消失。总之，我们的研究结果表明 NREM 睡眠具有抗焦虑作用，并为焦虑症提供了一种潜在的治疗策略。
