• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.18-21
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• 2001

The change of sleep pattern is one of the most often altered normal physiological functions in elderly people. Besides normal change of sleep, insomnia and sleep apnea syndrome (SAS) are (one of) the main complaints. In addition, parasomnia is also frequent in this age group. Several parasomnias frequently found in the elderly are reviewed. Periodic limb movements in sleep (PLMS), restless legs syndrome (RLS), and REM sleep behavior disorder are the most frequent parasomnias in old age. Most parasomnias could be diagnosed by polysomnography, and be treated easily. Therefore, early and precise diagnosis and management for parasomnia in aging people are needed.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.98-106
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• 2001

Auditory hallucinations are cardinal feature of psychosis. But the mechanism of hallucinated speech is unknown. The hypothesis that these hallucinations arise from pathologically altered brain monitoring system underlying speech perception is influential. With the help of rapidly developing neuroimaging study technologies, many researchers have been finding new organic deficits in the hallucinated schizophrenic patient's brain. In this article, we reviewed the general appearance of hallucination, a computer simulation model of hallucination and several neuroimaging study findings on hallucinating schizophrenic patients. In conclusion, we presented the presumptive mechanism of hallucination based on the anatomical dysfunction of schizophrenia.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.26-31
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• 1999

"Attention" is not defined sufficiently. This term incorporates several dimensions or complex information processes such as alertness, spatial distribution, focused attention, sustained attention, divided attention and supervisory attentional control. In practice, however, various aspects of attention cannot be assessed separately with a single test. Moreover, a particular test is never assessing attention only, because the several intervening variables may influence the attentional component. Therefore, one can only assess a certain aspect of human behavior with special interest for its attentional component. This paper attempted to clarify various concepts of attention, reviewed signal detection theories with receiver operating characteristic(ROC) curves, and listed practical methods for assessment of attention.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.5-18
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• 1999

A growing number of people are concerned about their sleep. There are many people with chronic sleep disorders. Sedativehypnotics including benzodiazepine and non-benzodiazepine have been widely used in chronic insomniacs. It is widely accepted that current hypnotics are efficient in alleviating subjective symptoms of insomnia. Non-benzodiazepine hypnotics include zolpidem, zopiclone, and melatonin. These novel non-benzodiazepine hypnotics that have efficacy comparable to benzodiazepines were developed with more understanding of benzodiazepine receptor pharmacology. Their unique pharmacologic profiles may offer few significant advantages in terms of adverse effects of benzodiazepines. However, most of hypnotics including non-benzodiazepine have some of dependence, tolerance, impaired daytime function and rebound insomnia. Currently, it is accepted that combination therapy with pharmacologic and behavioral intervention is the most effective for chronic insomniacs.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.49-56
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• 1997

Nocturnal panic involves sudden awakening from sleep in a state of panic characterized by various somatic sensation of sympathetic arousal and intense fear. Many(18-71%) of the spontaneous panic attacks tend to occur from a sleeping state unrelated to the situational and cognitive context. Nocturnal panickers experienced daytime panics and general somatic sensation more frequently than other panickers. Despite frequent distressing symptoms, these patients tend to exhibit little social or occupational impairment and minimal agoraphobia and have a high lifetime incidence of major depression and a good response to tricyclic antidepressants. Sleep panic attacks arise from non-REM sleep, late stage 2 or early stage 3. The pathophysiology and the similarity of nocturnal panic to sleep apnea, dream-induced anxiety attacks, night terrors, sleep paralysis, and temporal lobe epilepsy are discussed.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.181-190
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• 1997

Zolpidem is a relatively new, short-acting, rapid onset, and nonbenzodiazepine hypnotics. Zolpidem selectively binds to the central benzodiazepine 1 (BZI) receptor subtype. The present study was designed to compare the hypnotic effects of zolpidem (10 mg), triazolam (0.25 mg), and placebo in 22 schizophrenic inpatients. Zolpidem, triazolam, and placebo were administered orally in a randomized, double-blind design. Compared with placebo, zolpidem and triazolam significantly decreased sleep latency (p<0.05), increased total sleep time (p<0.05), and increased improvement of satisfaction of sleep (p<0.05). Zolpidem decreased the number of awakenings significantly in comparison with placebo (p<0.05), but triazolam did not. In addition, both drugs were well tolerated and did not produce severe side effects. These results suggest that zolpidem is effective for transient insomnia of schizophrenic inpatients and zolpidem is superior to triazolam in hypnotic effect.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 1997

This paper reviewed models to explain memory and neuropsychological tests to assess memory. Memory was explained in cognitive and neuroanatomical perspectives, Cognitive model describes memory as structure and process. In structure model, memory is divided into three systems: sensory memory, short-term memory(working memory), and long-term memory. In process model, there are broadly three categories of memory process: encoding, storage, and retrieval. Memory process work in memory structure. There are two prominent models of the neuroanatomy of memory, derived from the work of Mishkin and Appenzeller and that of Squire and Zola-Morgan. These two models are the most useful for the clinician in part because they take into account the connections between the limbic and frontal cortical regions. The major difference between the two models concerns the role of the amygdala in memory processess. Mishkin and his colleagues believe that the amygdala plays a significant role while Squire and his colleagues do not. The most popular and widely used tests of memory ability such as WMS-R, AVLT, CVLT, HVLT. RBMT, CFT, and BVRT-R, were reviewed.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.120-128
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• 1997

Clinical neuropsychological tests were developed originally for the diagnosis of neurological and neuro-surgical diseases. Recently, these tests are being introduced to psychiatric patients. Authors had the experience to use these tests in pychiatric outpatient clinic. Results were as follows. There was a significantly increase in language and attentional function in residual schizophrenia compared to normal control. In chronic neurosis, as visuospatial function was reduced, language and attentional functions were enhanced. With these results, authors suggest that application of neuropsychological tests in psychiatric patients may be very helpful in classifying the subgroups of disease, in selecting the modality of treatment, and in expecting prognosis.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.10-15
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• 2016

Since its development in the early 70s, actigraphy has been widely used in sleep research and clinical sleep medicine as an assessment tool of sleep and sleep-wake cycles. The validation and reliability of actigraphic measures have been reasonably examined in healthy normal individuals with good sleep patterns. Recent literature suggests that the use of actigraphy could be further extended to monitor insomnia and circadian sleep-wake disturbances, and detect sleep changes associated with drug treatments and non-pharmacologic interventions, although it is generally recommended to use complementary assessments such as sleep diaries and overnight polysomnography when possible. The development of actigraphy includes its improved hardware sensors for better detection of movements and advanced algorithms to score sleep and wake epochs. In this paper, we briefly review the quantitative analysis methods of actigraphy and its potential applications in sleep research.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.5-9
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• 2016

Previous research has identified the biological, psychological, and social factors that confer an elevated risk for suicide. Evidence suggests that sleep disturbances are one of the risk factors that predict an increased risk for suicidal behaviors. Both sleep disorders and general sleep complaints are linked to higher levels of suicidal ideation and depression, as well as increased rates of suicide and suicide attempts. The causal mechanism of this association is not clear. For example, it is not known if insomnia is an independent phenomenon that if interrupted could prevent the emergence of a mental disorder, or if insomnia is a symptom of another developing illness. Hypofrontality, HPA dysfunction, and an impaired serotonergic system are potential mechanisms underlying the association of sleep disturbances and suicidal behavior. Future research is necessary to examine the specific mechanism of this association between sleep and suicide, which may lead to an effective intervention and diminished suicide risk.