UC San Diego

Military veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder often complain of non-restful sleep, which further exacerbates their symptoms. Our previous study showed a deficit in Lo Deep sleep, or slow oscillations, in the PTSD population compared to healthy control sleepers. Because Lo Deep sleep is likely a stage when the brain eliminates protein debris, it is critical to find the cause and effective therapeutics to reverse Lo Deep deficiency. The current study aims to replicate and extend this finding by examining several physiological and medication factors that may be responsible for the Lo Deep deficiency. We recorded overnight sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) via a 2-channel headband device on 69 veterans in a residential treatment facility. Dried urine samples were collected at 4 time points during one day to measure melatonin, cortisol, norepinephrine and other factors. EEG data were transformed into frequency power and submitted to an automated sleep scoring algorithm. The scoring corresponds to clear spectral patterns in the overnight spectrogram but does not align exactly with traditional visual scoring stages. As expected, veterans showed decreased Lo Deep (activity < 1 Hz) and more Hi Deep sleep (1-3 Hz activity) than healthy controls, replicating our previous study. Multiple linear regressions showed that melatonin dose and morning urine melatonin correlated with more Lo Deep sleep. Buspirone dose also correlated with more Lo Deep, but only 6 subjects were taking buspirone. Also replicating the findings from our last study were independent reductions of REM sleep with prazosin and sertraline. Other findings included decreased Lo and increased Hi Deep sleep with higher caffeine dose, and less Hi Deep percentage with higher testosterone. Finally, evening cortisol levels correlated with a higher percentage of Wake after sleep onset. These results confirm Lo Deep deficiency in this PTSD population and suggests melatonin as a possible therapeutic to reverse Lo Deep deficiency. This is a critical first step to establishing a systematic sleep assessment and treatment program in this and potentially other populations to prevent future brain pathology.