Summary: According to a new study, controlled sleep deprivation in an inpatient setting can have a significant impact on symptoms of depression. Partial and total sleep deprivation helped reduce depression in almost half of the patients within 24 hours, researchers report.
Source: University of Pennsylvania.
Sleep deprivation – typically administered in controlled, inpatient settings – rapidly reduces symptoms of depression in roughly half of depression patients, according the first meta-analysis on the subject in nearly 30 years, from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Partial sleep deprivation (sleep for three to four hours followed by forced wakefulness for 20-21 hours) was equally as effective as total sleep deprivation (being deprived of sleep for 36 hours), and medication did not appear to significantly influence these results.
The results are published today in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.
Although total sleep deprivation or partial sleep deprivation can produce clinical improvement in depression symptoms within 24 hours, antidepressants are the most common treatment for depression. Such drugs typically take weeks or longer to experience results, yet 16.7 percent of 242 million U.S. adults filled one or more prescriptions for psychiatric drugs in 2013.
The findings of this meta-analysis hope to provide relief for the estimated 16.1 million adults who experienced a major depressive episode in 2014.
Previous studies have shown rapid antidepressant effects from sleep deprivation for roughly 40-60 percent of individuals, yet this response rate has not been analyzed to obtain a more precise percentage since 1990 despite more than 75 studies since then on the subject.
“More than 30 years since the discovery of the antidepressant effects of sleep deprivation, we still do not have an effective grasp on precisely how effective the treatment is and how to achieve the best clinical results,” said study senior author Philip Gehrman, PhD, an associate professor of Psychiatry and member of the Penn Sleep Center, who also treats patients at the Cpl. Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center. “Our analysis precisely reports how effective sleep deprivation is and in which populations it should be administered.”
Reviewing more than 2,000 studies, the team pulled data from a final group of 66 studies executed over a 36 year period to determine how response may be affected by the type and timing of sleep deprivation performed (total vs early or late partial sleep deprivation), the clinical sample (having depressive or manic episodes, or a combination of both), medication status, and age and gender of the sample.
They also explored how response to sleep deprivation may differ across studies according to how “response” is defined in each study.
“These studies in our analysis show that sleep deprivation is effective for many populations,” said lead author Elaine Boland, PhD, a clinical associate and research psychologist at the Cpl. Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center. “Regardless of how the response was quantified, how the sleep deprivation was delivered, or the type of depression the subject was experiencing, we found a nearly equivalent response rate.”
In addition to Gehrman and Boland, additional authors include Rachel V. Smith from the Cpl. Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center, and Hengyi Rao, David F. Dinges, Namni Goel, John A. Detre, Mathias Basner, Yvette I. Sheline, and Michael E. Thase, all from Penn.
Funding: The authors note that further research is needed to identify precisely how sleep deprivation causes rapid and significant reductions in depression severity. Also, future studies are needed to include a more comprehensive assessment of potential predictors of treatment outcome to identify those patients most likely to benefit from sleep deprivation. This research was funded by National Institutes of Health grants (R01 HL102119, P30 NS045839, R01MH107571, R01MH098260, P41 EB015893, R01 MH080729), National Aeronautics and Space Administration grants (NNX15AK76A, NBPF02701, NNX08AY09G, NBPF03401, NBPF02501, NNX14AM81G, NX16AI53G), National Heart, Lung, and Brain Institute (U01 HL125388), National Institute on Drug Abuse (1 R21 DA040902-01A1), the Office of Naval Research (N00014-11-1-0361), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NNX14AN49G), National Space Biomedical Research Institute through NASA (NCC 9-58), and grant support from Merck and Philips Healthcare/Respironics.
Source: Gregory Richter – University of Pennsylvania
Image Source: NeuroscienceNews.com image is in the public domain.
Original Research: Abstract for “Meta-Analysis of the Antidepressant Effects of Acute Sleep Deprivation” by Elaine M. Boland, PhD; Hengyi Rao, PhD; David F. Dinges, PhD; Rachel V. Smith, PhD; Namni Goel, PhD; John A. Detre, MD; Mathias Basner, MD, PhD; Yvette I. Sheline, MD; Michael E. Thase, MD; and Philip R. Gehrman, PhD in Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. Published online September 19 2017 doi:10.4088/JCP.16r11332
[cbtabs][cbtab title=”MLA”]University of Pennsylvania “Controlled Sleep Deprivation May Help Reduce Depression.” NeuroscienceNews. NeuroscienceNews, 20 September 2017.
<https://neurosciencenews.com/sleep-deprivation-depression-7527/>.[/cbtab][cbtab title=”APA”]University of Pennsylvania (2017, September 20). Controlled Sleep Deprivation May Help Reduce Depression. NeuroscienceNews. Retrieved September 20, 2017 from https://neurosciencenews.com/sleep-deprivation-depression-7527/[/cbtab][cbtab title=”Chicago”]University of Pennsylvania “Controlled Sleep Deprivation May Help Reduce Depression.” https://neurosciencenews.com/sleep-deprivation-depression-7527/ (accessed September 20, 2017).[/cbtab][/cbtabs]
Abstract
Meta-Analysis of the Antidepressant Effects of Acute Sleep Deprivation
Objective: To provide a quantitative meta-analysis of the antidepressant effects of sleep deprivation to complement qualitative reviews addressing response rates.
Data Sources: English-language studies from 1974 to 2016 using the keywords sleep deprivation and depression searched through PubMed and PsycINFO databases.
Study Selection: A total of 66 independent studies met criteria for inclusion: conducted experimental sleep deprivation, reported the percentage of the sample that responded to sleep deprivation, provided a priori definition of antidepressant response, and did not seamlessly combine sleep deprivation with other therapies (eg, chronotherapeutics, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation).
Data Extraction: Data extracted included percentage of responders, type of sample (eg, bipolar, unipolar), type of sleep deprivation (eg, total, partial), demographics, medication use, type of outcome measure used, and definition of response (eg, 30% reduction in depression ratings). Data were analyzed with meta-analysis of proportions and a Poisson mixed-effects regression model.
Results: The overall response rate to sleep deprivation was 45% among studies that utilized a randomized control group and 50% among studies that did not. The response to sleep deprivation was not affected significantly by the type of sleep deprivation performed, the nature of the clinical sample, medication status, the definition of response used, or age and gender of the sample.
Conclusions: These findings support a significant effect of sleep deprivation and suggest the need for future studies on the phenotypic nature of the antidepressant response to sleep deprivation, on the neurobiological mechanisms of action, and on moderators of the sleep deprivation treatment response in depression.
“Meta-Analysis of the Antidepressant Effects of Acute Sleep Deprivation” by Elaine M. Boland, PhD; Hengyi Rao, PhD; David F. Dinges, PhD; Rachel V. Smith, PhD; Namni Goel, PhD; John A. Detre, MD; Mathias Basner, MD, PhD; Yvette I. Sheline, MD; Michael E. Thase, MD; and Philip R. Gehrman, PhD in Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. Published online September 19 2017 doi:10.4088/JCP.16r11332
