FUNCTIONAL BRAIN IMAGING, SLEEP, AND SLEEP-DEPRIVATION - CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE OVERAROUSAL HYPOTHESIS OF DEPRESSION

In 1975 van den Burg and van den Hoofdakker hypothesized that depressed patients might be ‘overaroused.’ This suggestion is consistent not only with their seminal observations on the antidepressant effects of total sleep deprivation in depression, but with the short, fragmented, and shallow sleep of depressed patients, lowered arousal thresholds, hyperactivity of the hypothalamus-pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis, and elevated core body temperature commonly found in some patients during the sleep period. © 1995, Scandinavian College of Neuropsychopharmacology. All rights reserved.