Citation

Jones MB, Jeevan S, Wang J, Li R, Agrawal R, Sharafkaneh A, Marsh L, Jorge RE. J. Neuropsychiatry Clin. Neurosci. 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

The Veterans Affairs (VA) South Central Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center, Houston (Jones); the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Houston (Jones, Jeevan, Agrawal, Sharafkaneh, Marsh, Jorge); the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston (Jones, Marsh, Jorge); the Department of Biostatistics and Data Science, School of Public Health, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (Wang, Li); and the Department of Medicine, Pulmonary, Critical Medicine and Sleep Medicine Section, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston (Agrawal, Sharafkaneh).

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, American Neuropsychiatric Association, Publisher American Psychiatric Publishing)

DOI

10.1176/appi.neuropsych.19010009

PMID

31587626

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) frequently report dream enactment behavior (DEB). Although DEBs are associated with PTSD symptoms, their relationship with other sleep disorders, including REM behavior disorder, warrants reexamination of their clinical correlates.

METHODS: The investigators used a cross-sectional, exploratory analysis to compare demographic and clinical characteristics of veterans endorsing regularly occurring DEB compared with those endorsing no or infrequent DEB. The participants comprised a convenience sample of servicemembers who were previously deployed to Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn (OEF/OIF/OND) and enrolled in an ongoing cohort study.

RESULTS: Of the 78 eligible participants, 19 (24.4%) endorsed DEBs occurring at least once per week in the past month. Compared with participants who reported no or infrequent DEBs, participants with regularly occurring DEBs had poorer sleep quality, greater PTSD severity, a higher number of reported mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) with loss of consciousness, and a higher likelihood of being diagnosed with sleep disorders. After adjustment for global sleep quality, a significant association persisted between DEBs and the number of mTBI with loss of consciousness but not between DEBs and the severity of PTSD symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that mTBI may disrupt neural circuits regulating sleep among OIF/OEF/OND veterans. Prospective, polysomnographic assessment of muscle tone and behavioral events during REM sleep is needed to characterize the physiology of DEBs in this population.

Language: en

Keywords

Parasomnia; Posttraumatic Stress Disorder; Sleep