The Sleep of Patients with Manic-Depressive Psychosis, Depressive Type

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Abstract
The fact that disturbances in sleep are so consistently associated clinically with pathological depression led to this attempt to investigate these sleep disturbances more thoroughly and describe them more adequately. The electroencephalograph was used in the investigation to determine the sleep characteristics. Previous EEG studies have shown that a correlation exists between electroencephalographic patterns and various depths of sleep. Six patients with manic-depressive psychosis, depressive type, were used as subjects. After one night in which the patient became accustomed to the exptl. situation, a complete night''s sleep of each patient was recorded by means of a Grass ink-writing electroencephalograph. Cortical potentials from the left occipital, the left motor and the left frontal areas were secured, and the records from the left occipital area were analyzed in accordance with the categories suggested by Loo-mis, Harvery and Hobart. The records of the 6 manic-depressive patients were compared in different ways with similar records of normal controls. The records indicated that there was significantly more light sleep and less deep sleep for the patients. The patients also took a considerably longer time in going to sleep, awakened more frequently, and oscillated more frequently from one level of sleep to another.