Neurobiology of REM sleep

Author(s):  
Pierre-Hervé Luppi ◽  
Olivier Clément ◽  
Christelle Peyron ◽  
Patrice Fort

REM (paradoxical) sleep is a state characterized by rapid eye movements, EEG activation, and muscle atonia. REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is a parasomnia characterized by loss of muscle atonia during REM sleep. Cataplexy, a key symptom of narcolepsy, is a striking sudden episode of muscle weakness comparable to REM sleep atonia triggered by emotions during wakefulness. This chapter presents recent results on the neuronal network responsible for REM sleep and explores hypotheses explaining RBD and cataplexy. RBD could be due to a specific degeneration of glutamatergic neurons responsible for muscle atonia, localized in the pontine sublaterodorsal tegmental nucleus (SLD) or the glycinergic/GABAergic premotoneurons localized in the ventral medullary reticular nuclei. Cataplexy in narcoleptics could be due to activation during waking of SLD neurons. In normal conditions, activation of SLD neurons would be blocked by simultaneous excitation by hypocretins of REM sleep-off GABAergic neurons localized in the ventrolateral periaqueductal gray.

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (04) ◽  
pp. 461-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Verna Porter ◽  
Alon Avidan

AbstractRapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is a parasomnia characterized by loss of muscle atonia during REM sleep that allows motor responses to dream content. Patients display patterns of unusual, complex, and even violent motor activities. There is a high risk for harm to the patients or their bedpartners. REM sleep behavior disorder is more likely to occur in synucleinopathies such as Parkinson's disease, Lewy body dementia, and multiple system atrophy and may precede clinical manifestations by decades. In secondary RBD, brainstem centers involved in muscle atonia during REM are disrupted. These conditions include multiple sclerosis, cerebral vascular accidents, and brainstem tumors. The acute onset of RBD may associate with the use of antidepressants and acute withdrawal from alcohol. The diagnosis of RBD should be confirmed by polysomnography utilizing multiple-limb electromyography and synchronized digital video monitoring and demonstrate elevation of muscle tone during REM sleep along with dream enactment behavior. The differential diagnosis includes sleepwalking, nocturnal seizures, sleep apnea, and periodic limb movement disorder. Management focuses on maximizing safety, use of clonazepam/melatonin, and discussion of prognosis with patients.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1588
Author(s):  
Michela Figorilli ◽  
Giuseppe Lanza ◽  
Patrizia Congiu ◽  
Rosamaria Lecca ◽  
Elisa Casaglia ◽  
...  

REM sleep without atonia (RSWA) is the polysomnographic (PSG) hallmark of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD), a feature essential for the diagnosis of this condition. Several additional neurophysiological aspects of this complex disorder have also recently been investigated in depth, which constitute the focus of this narrative review, together with RSWA. First, we describe the complex neural network underlying REM sleep and its muscle atonia, focusing on the disordered mechanisms leading to RSWA. RSWA is then described in terms of its polysomnographic features, and the methods (visual and automatic) currently available for its scoring and quantification are exposed and discussed. Subsequently, more recent and advanced neurophysiological features of RBD are described, such as electroencephalography during wakefulness and sleep, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and vestibular evoked myogenic potentials. The role of the assessment of neurophysiological features in the study of RBD is then carefully discussed, highlighting their usefulness and sensitivity in detecting neurodegeneration in the early or prodromal stages of RBD, as well as their relationship with other proposed biomarkers for the diagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring of this condition. Finally, a future research agenda is proposed to help clarify the many still unclear aspects of RBD.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (23) ◽  
pp. 5585
Author(s):  
Gyeong Seon Choi ◽  
Ji Young Yun ◽  
Sungeun Hwang ◽  
Song E. Kim ◽  
Jeong-Yeon Kim ◽  
...  

REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) could be a predictor of Parkinsonism even before development of typical motor symptoms. This study aims to characterize clinical features and corticomuscular and corticocortical coherence (CMC and CCC, respectively) during sleep in RBD patients with or without Parkinsonism. We enrolled a total of 105 subjects, including 20 controls, 54 iRBD, and 31 RBD+P patients, patients who were diagnosed as idiopathic RBD (iRBD) and RBD with Parkinsonism (RBD+P) in our neurology department. We analyzed muscle atonia index (MAI) and CMC between EEG and chin/limb muscle electromyography (EMG) and CCC during different sleep stages. Although differences in the CMC of iRBD group were observed only during REM sleep, MAI differences between groups were noted during both REM and NREM N2 stage sleep. During REM sleep, CMC was higher and MAI was reduced in iRBD patients compared to controls (p = 0.001, p < 0.001, respectively). Interestingly, MAI was more reduced in RBD+P compared to iRBD patients. In comparison, CCC was higher in iRBD patients compared to controls whereas CCC was lower in RBD+P groups compared to control and iRBD groups in various frequency bands during both NREM N2 and REM sleep stages. Among them, increased CMC during REM sleep revealed correlation between clinical severities of RBD symptoms. Our findings indicate that MAI, CMC, and CCC showed distinctive features in iRBD and RBD+P patients compared to controls, suggesting potential usefulness to understand possible links between these diseases.


Author(s):  
Shannon S. Sullivan

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is a parasomnia featuring often violent dream enactment behavior, which may lead to injury. Its polysomnographic hallmark is loss of physiological REM muscle atonia. Prevalence is unknown but estimated to be less than 1% of the general adult population, and as high as 6% in the elderly. It is an important risk factor for development of alpha-synucleinopathy, with a conversion rate of approximately 80% after 15 years. Treatments include safeguarding the sleep environment, and clonazepam and/or melatonin to reduce injury. In the future, RBD diagnosis may provide an opportunity for new neuroprotective therapies.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milan Nigam ◽  
Ines Ayadi ◽  
Camille Noiray ◽  
Ana Catarina Branquino‐Bras ◽  
Erika Herraez Sanchez ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
pp. 154596832110112
Author(s):  
Rebekah L. S. Summers ◽  
Miriam R. Rafferty ◽  
Michael J. Howell ◽  
Colum D. MacKinnon

Parkinson disease (PD) and other related diseases with α-synuclein pathology are associated with a long prodromal or preclinical stage of disease. Predictive models based on diagnosis of idiopathic rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) make it possible to identify people in the prodromal stage of synucleinopathy who have a high probability of future disease and provide an opportunity to implement neuroprotective therapies. However, rehabilitation providers may be unaware of iRBD and the motor abnormalities that indicate early motor system dysfunction related to α-synuclein pathology. Furthermore, there is no existing rehabilitation framework to guide early interventions for people with iRBD. The purpose of this work is to (1) review extrapyramidal signs of motor system dysfunction in people with iRBD and (2) propose a framework for early protective or preventive therapies in prodromal synucleinopathy using iRBD as a predictive marker. Longitudinal and cross-sectional studies indicate that the earliest emerging motor deficits in iRBD are bradykinesia, deficits performing activities of daily living, and abnormalities in speech, gait, and posture. These deficits may emerge up to 12 years before a diagnosis of synucleinopathy. The proposed rehabilitation framework for iRBD includes early exercise-based interventions of aerobic exercise, progressive resistance training, and multimodal exercise with rehabilitation consultations to address exercise prescription, progression, and monitoring. This rehabilitation framework may be used to implement neuroprotective, multidisciplinary, and proactive clinical care in people with a high likelihood of conversion to PD, dementia with Lewy bodies, or multiple systems atrophy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eun Jin Yoon ◽  
Oury Monchi

AbstractREM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) has a poor prognostic implication in both motor and non-motor functions in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients. However, to the best of our knowledge no study to date investigated the longitudinal cerebral changes underlying RBD symptoms in PD. We performed the longitudinal study to investigate the association between probable RBD and cortical and subcortical changes in early, de novo PD patients. We studied 78 participants from the Parkinson’s Progression Marker Initiative who underwent structural MRI at baseline and after 2 years. The presence of probable RBD (pRBD) was evaluated using the RBD screening questionnaire. We compared the cross-sectional and longitudinal cortical thickness and subcortical volume changes, between PD patients with and without pRBD. At baseline, we found bilateral inferior temporal cortex thinning in the PD-pRBD group compared with the PD-noRBD group. Longitudinally, the PD-pRBD group revealed a significant increase in the rate of thinning in the left insula compared with the PD-noRBD group, and the increased thinning correlated with decreased cognitive performance. In subcortical volume analyses, the presence of pRBD was linked with volume decrease over time in the left caudate nucleus, pallidum and amygdala. The volume changes in the left caudate nucleus revealed correlations with global cognition. These results support the idea that RBD is an important marker of rapid progression in PD motor and non-motor symptoms and suggest that the atrophy in the left insula and caudate nucleus might be the underlying neurobiological mechanisms of the poorer prognosis in PD patients with RBD.


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