Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 27, Issue 5, 1 March 1990, Pages 477-488
Biological Psychiatry

EEG sleep studies in “pure” primary alcoholism during subacute withdrawal: Relationships to normal controls, age, and other clinical variables

https://doi.org/10.1016/0006-3223(90)90439-9Get rights and content

Abstract

Electroencephalogram (EEG) sleep recordings were compared in 34 normal controls and 31 inpatients with relatively pure primary alcoholism who had been abstinent for about 17 days. Compared with normal controls, primary alcoholics took longer to fall asleep, slept less, and had poor sleep efficiency. Sleep loss reflected reduced non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, especially stage 2 sleep, stage 4 sleep, and total delta (stage 3 and 4) sleep. Alcoholic patients had higher REM density of the first REM period. Sleep deteriorated with age in both normal controls and patients, with younger alcoholics showing sleep patterns typical of older controls. Among other clinical-demographic variables examined, the shorter the duration of sobriety at the time of the study, the later patients went to bed and fell asleep. The number of drinks per drinking day in the 3 months before admission was directly related to the duration of the first REM period. In addition, the maximum number of withdrawal symptoms the patient had ever experienced was inversely related to the amount of delta sleep. Sleep measures were not correlated with depression ratings, liver enzymes, or other measures of alcohol consumption.

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  • Cited by (0)

    This work was supported in part by the Veterans Administration Research Service to the Alcohol Research Center (ARC) at the San Diego Veterans Administration Medical Center; by Merit Review Grants to JCG, MI, and MS; and by the USCD Mental Health Clinical Research Center (MH30914), MH 18399, and MH 38738.

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