Subjective and objective sleep quality modulate emotion regulatory brain function in anxiety and depression

Abstract

Background Disturbances in emotion regulation and sleep are shared across anxiety and mood disorders. Poor sleep has been shown to impair cognitive processes which may undermine cognitive regulatory function. However, it remains unknown if sleep quality impacts regulatory mechanisms in clinical anxiety and depression. Methods During fMRI, 78 patients with social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and/or major depressive disorder completed a validated emotion regulation task, which involved reappraisal (i.e., decrease negative affect) as compared to viewing aversive images. Sleep quality was assessed with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and actigraphy, representing subjective and objective measures of sleep, respectively. Regression analysis was conducted with the PSQI and actigraphy sleep efficiency, duration, and wake-after sleep onset variables. Results PSQI and actigraphy measures indicated that the majority of patients experienced problematic sleep, however, subjective and objective sleep measures were uncorrelated. Whole-brain voxel-wise regression analysis, controlling for diagnosis, revealed worse self-reported sleep corresponded with less reappraise-related activation in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (DACC). The same analysis performed with actigraphy data showed less sleep efficiency positively corresponded with DACC activation. Post-hoc stepwise regression analysis showed these sleep measures predicted DACC activity whereas anxiety and depression symptoms did not. Conclusions Individual differences in self-perceived and objective sleep quality differentially modulated the DACC, which is implicated in cognitive reappraisal. Findings suggest neural correlates of emotion regulation tracks different aspects of the sleep experience. Results also indicate sleep disturbance may play a role in the emotion dysregulation observed in anxiety and depressive disorders.

Reduced resting‐state functional connectivity and sleep impairment in abstinent male alcohol‐dependent patients

“…First, we only employed subjective measures of sleep in this study. Previous experiments associating PSQI with resting‐state experiments also failed to measure objective measures of sleep (Klumpp et al, ; Klumpp, Hosseini, & Phan, ). Objective measures, such as polysomnography should be used to further investigate the association of alcohol dependence and sleep in future study.…”

Do Norwegian Sami and non-indigenous individuals understand questions about mental health similarly? A SAMINOR 2 study

“…It is well known that disturbances in emotion regulation and sleep are common aspects of anxiety and depression and that changing quality in sleep is a very sensitive indicator of mental health issues [38]. In the SAMINOR 1 study of Bakken et al [39], with participants mainly from same areas as in the SAMINOR 2 study, the prevalence of insomnia and use of hypnotics in the core Sami group was only half of that in the non-Sami.…”

Schlafstörungen und Beeinträchtigungen des Schlafs als Nebenwirkungen von Psychopharmaka: eine Bewertung der Daten aus Fachinformationen

“…Gleichzeitig können Schlafstörungen Folge körperlicher Erkrankungen oder psychischer Störungen sein und präsentieren sich gelegentlich als erstes Symptom einer körperlichen Erkrankung oder psychischen Störung [20]. Vor dem Hintergrund der Bedeutung des Schlafs für die kognitive Funktion [21,22], Stimmung [19,23], Emotionsregulation [24,25], Impulskontrolle [26,27]…”