Sleep and Parasympathetic Activity During Rest and Stress in Healthy Adolescents and Adolescents With Bipolar Disorder

This study evaluated sleep duration, timing, and variability as prospective predictors of parasympathetic nervous system activity during rest and social stress in adolescents with bipolar disorder, reflecting sleep-related interference in stress regulatory systems that may confer vulnerability to mood episodes. Method Participants were adolescents with bipolar disorder (n = 22) and healthy adolescents (n = 27). Sleep duration and timing were measured by actigraphy for 1 week before a laboratory social stress task, during which high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV) was indexed using electrocardiography. Multilevel models were used to evaluate group, sleep characteristics, and their interactions as predictors of initial HF-HRV and change in HF-HRV during rest and stress. Results Associations between group and changes in HF-HRV during stress were moderated by sleep duration mean (z = 2.24, p = .025) and variability (z = −2.78, p = .006). There were also main effects of mean sleep duration on initial HF-HRV during rest (z = −5.37, p
Source: Psychosomatic Medicine - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Tags: ORIGINAL ARTICLES Source Type: research