Clin Psychopharmacol Neurosci.  2021 Aug;19(3):521-529. 10.9758/cpn.2021.19.3.521.

Relationship between the Spectral Power Density of Sleep Electroencephalography and Psychiatric Symptoms in Patients with Breathing-related Sleep Disorder

• Kang JM
• Cho SE
• Lee GB
• Cho SJ
• Park KH
• Kim ST
• Kang SG

• KMID: 2519560
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.9758/cpn.2021.19.3.521

Abstract

Objective
Patients with breathing-related sleep disorder (BRSD) often complain of psychiatric symptoms such as depression in addition to snoring, excessive sleepiness, and disturbed sleep. However, the relationship between psychiatric symptoms and severity of sleep apnea in BRSD is controversial. We conducted this study to investigate the relationship between psychiatric symptoms and sleep electroencephalography (EEG) findings in BRSD patients using spectral analysis.
Methods
All participants underwent polysomnography and evaluation using Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) scale. We analyzed the absolute spectral power density values of standard EEG frequency bands in the participants (n = 169) with BRSD during the non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep period. We performed correlation analysis between the domain scores of SCL-90-R scale and the absolute values of the EEG frequency bands.
Results
Significant positive correlation was observed between the absolute spectral power density values in the slow oscillation band and the degree of paranoid ideation (r = 0.226, p = 0.028) and depression (r = 0.216, p = 0.044) in SCL-90-R. The multiple linear regression model showed that higher paranoid ideation domain score (B = 0.007, p = 0.020), younger age (B = −0.011, p ＜ 0.001), and female sex (B = 0.213, p = 0.004) were associated with higher slow oscillation power during NREM sleep.
Conclusion
The results of the present study suggested a relationship between sleep EEG and psychiatric symptoms in patients with BRSD. This relationship needs to be validated with further studies.

Keyword

Breathing-related sleep disorder; Sleep electroencephalography; Spectral analysis; Symptom Checklist-90-Revised; Polysomnography