Autor:innen:
L. Mauracher (Innsbruck, AT)
J. Serebriakova (Innsbruck, AT)
H. Niederstätter (Innsbruck, AT)
W. Parson (Innsbruck, AT)
T. Schurr (Innsbruck, AT)
E. Deisenhammer (Innsbruck, AT)
Background: The acute, yet short-lived antidepressant effect of sleep deprivation (SD) on depressed patients has been studied for more than 60 years. A switch to (hypo)mania is a complication of therapeutic SD, occurring in about 5% of cases. Recently, a survey of Spanish healthcare workers showed that one-third of respondents experienced elevated mood on the majority of occasions after SD due to being on-call. We hypothesized that this phenomenon is common in the general population, especially in young adults, and that it may be associated with a history of affective symptoms, chronotype, and serotonin transporter promoter (5-HTTLPR) genotype.
Methods: In a cross-sectional design, we recruited 254 participants, aged between 18-30 years. The primary question was "Do you experience more or less regularly, after being substantially sleep deprived, (…) an elevated/euphoric mood state with increased energy and activity?" Information on intoxication with alcohol or other psychotropic drugs during these experiences, as well as screening and history for psychiatric disorders, chronotype and 5-HTTLPR genotype were collected.
Results: Out of 254 participants, 3 had to be excluded. Of the remaining 251 participants, 98 (39.0%) answered "yes" to the main question. In this exploratory study, these hypomanic experiences were not associated with gender, alcohol or drug consumption, history of psychiatric illness, family history of depressive disorders or suicide, 5-HTTLPR polymorphism or chronotype.
Conclusion: We describe a phenomenon of regularly occurring hypomanic experiences after non-therapeutic sleep deprivation in 39% of our sample of young adults. Our results indicate that this phenomenon of elevated mood after SD is not limited to depressed individuals, but is common among healthy individuals as well. Future research on this phenomenon might provide insight into mechanisms of therapeutic sleep deprivation and (hypo)-manic mood states.