Sleep Disturbances in Patients with Asperger Syndrome Related to the Severity of their Symptoms
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Sleep Disturbances in Patients with Asperger Syndrome Related to the Severity of their Symptoms Rodolfo Cebreros‑Paniagua1 · Fructuoso Ayala‑Guerrero1 · Erik Leonardo Mateos‑Salgado1 Received: 26 March 2020 / Revised: 31 July 2020 / Accepted: 21 August 2020 © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020
Abstract Patients with Asperger syndrome (AS) usually report sleep problems. The objective of this study was to compare the general sleep structure of children with Asperger syndrome to that displayed by healthy children through polysomnographic study. Sleep characteristics were compared to severity of AS symptoms. Two groups of children aged 8–12 years were studied, one group with AS patients and the other with healthy children. Results show that patients with AS had a significant increase in sleep latency, REM latency and a decrease in the number of REM sleep episodes. It was also observed that the AS patients exhibit a correlation between the fragmentation of sleep and the increase in the intensity of the AS symptoms. It is concluded that sleep latency, REM latency and number of episodes are affected in AS patients and the AS symptoms are related to sleep disturbances in patients. Keywords Sleep · Asperger · Severity
1 Introduction Sleep is a physiological and behavioral process that is characterized by the presence of a reversible state of unconsciousness, a diminished sensory activity and an almost absent motor activity. Some other behavioral characteristics that are present include closed eyes and a specific posture [11]. Sleep is related to fundamental processes for an adequate functioning of the organism. Among these processes are the consolidation of memory, the restoration of brain activity, the regulation of emotional states and cognitive abilities, as well as the optimal functioning of the body’s immune system. Thus, an inadequate sleep causes negative consequences in the above-mentioned processes [2, 9, 11, 26]. Since sleep is a process that depends on the appropriate functioning of the central nervous system, any psychiatric or * Rodolfo Cebreros‑Paniagua [email protected] Fructuoso Ayala‑Guerrero [email protected] Erik Leonardo Mateos‑Salgado [email protected] 1
Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
neurological disease has the potential to produce functional and structural alterations in sleep, causing a non-restorative sensation with the consequences mentioned above. Depression, anxiety, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and neurodegenerative diseases are some of the conditions that have the greatest impact on sleep and therefore are widely studied. However, studies of sleep in patients with generalized developmental diseases (a group of conditions that include all types of autism described nowadays) have begun to yield strong data on the poor quality of sleep present in these patients [11]. In different sleep studies carried out on patients with autism, multiple disturbances such as decreased bed time, decreased total sleep time,
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