Department of Psychiatry, Kurita Hospital, Nagano, Japan.
Department of Psychiatry, Shinshu University School of Medicine, Matsumoto, Japan.
Neuropsychopharmacol Rep. 2023 Mar;43(1):112-119. doi: 10.1002/npr2.12317. Epub 2023 Jan 6.
Brexpiprazole is an atypical antipsychotic drug widely used in Japan for the treatment of schizophrenia. Previous studies have investigated the therapeutic effects of some antipsychotics on sleep variables; however, to our knowledge, the effects of brexpiprazole on sleep architecture have not been examined in patients with schizophrenia. Therefore, we aimed to exploratorily investigate the effect of brexpiprazole on sleep variables measured by polysomnography in patients with schizophrenia.
This study included 10 patients with schizophrenia who were originally treated with haloperidol alone. Sleep variables of the participants were measured using polysomnography. After excluding those who did not meet the study criteria, seven patients (five men and two women; mean age [SD], 59.0 [10.0] years) were eligible for further analysis. Polysomnography was repeated at 4 weeks after the participants were prescribed brexpiprazole in addition to haloperidol. We compared the sleep architecture of the participants, measured using polysomnography, before and after taking brexpiprazole.
Add-on brexpiprazole significantly prolonged rapid eye movement latency, increased the duration and percentage of stage N2 and stage N3 sleep (min, %), and decreased the duration and percentage of stage rapid eye movement sleep (min, %) at a significance level of nominal p < 0.05.
Although not significant after correcting for multiple comparisons, the present results showed that add-on brexpiprazole could alter the sleep architecture of patients with schizophrenia. Future studies are warranted to replicate these findings and to further investigate the beneficial influence of brexpiprazole on sleep.
布瑞哌唑是一种广泛用于日本治疗精神分裂症的非典型抗精神病药物。先前的研究已经调查了一些抗精神病药物对睡眠变量的治疗效果；然而，据我们所知，布瑞哌唑对精神分裂症患者的睡眠结构的影响尚未被研究过。因此，我们旨在探索性地研究布瑞哌唑对精神分裂症患者睡眠变量的影响，这些变量是通过多导睡眠图测量的。
这项研究包括 10 名最初单独使用氟哌啶醇治疗的精神分裂症患者。参与者的睡眠变量使用多导睡眠图进行测量。在排除不符合研究标准的患者后，有 7 名患者（5 名男性和 2 名女性；平均年龄[标准差]，59.0[10.0]岁）符合进一步分析的条件。在参与者被处方布瑞哌唑联合氟哌啶醇 4 周后，重复进行多导睡眠图。我们比较了参与者在服用布瑞哌唑前后使用多导睡眠图测量的睡眠结构。
添加布瑞哌唑可显著延长快速眼动潜伏期，增加 N2 和 N3 期睡眠的持续时间和百分比（分钟，%），并减少快速眼动睡眠的持续时间和百分比（分钟，%），具有名义 p 值<0.05 的显著性。
尽管在进行多次比较校正后没有统计学意义，但本研究结果表明，添加布瑞哌唑可以改变精神分裂症患者的睡眠结构。未来的研究需要复制这些发现，并进一步研究布瑞哌唑对睡眠的有益影响。
