PURPOSE. To determine whether transcorneal electrical stimulation (TES) has neuroprotective effects on the photoreceptors, and whether it slows the rate of decrease of the electroretinogram (ERG) in rhodopsin P347L transgenic (Tg) rabbits.METHODS. Six-week-old Tg rabbits received TES through a contact lens electrode on the left eye weekly for 6 weeks. ...

Hypocretin deficiency causes narcolepsy. It is unknown whether melatonin secretion is affected in this sleep disorder. Therefore, in both narcolepsy patients and matched controls, the authors measured plasma melatonin levels hourly for 24 h before and after 5 days of sodium oxybate (SXB) administration. Although mean melatonin concentrations were similar between ...

OBJECTIVE: Narcolepsy is a rare disabling sleep disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness and cataplexy (sudden loss of muscle tone). Drugs such as pitolisant, which block histamine H3 autoreceptors, constitute a newly identified class of stimulants because they increase brain histamine and enhance wakefulness in animal and human adult narcolepsy. ...

A recognized complication of vagal nerve stimulation is new or worsening sleep apnea. Its pathophysiology is not clearly understood. We report a patient with obstructive sleep apnea that was directly associated with vagal nerve stimulation causing recurring vocal cord adduction. Adjusting the stimulator settings resolved the problem.

Given the liver's importance in controlling metabolic homeostasis in mammals, we sought to establish (i) whether the thermal status of this organ was involved in the link between sleep, thermoregulation and food intake and (ii) how the hypothalamic structures affect the functional interactions between processes involved in regulation of the ...

Coenzyme Q plays an integral role in oxygen metabolism and management, and there is a positive correlation between low tissue coenzyme Q concentrations and the progression of many degenerative diseases. Retinal oxidative damage plays a role in the pathogenesis of many degenerative eye diseases; nevertheless, despite the retina's high rate ...

INTRODUCTION: Currently the common pathogenetic mechanisms in Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are targeted growing attention. The aim of this study is to find out the influence of chronic intermittent hypoxemia (CIH) and OSA related parameters to severity of NAFLD. METHODS: We examined the liver ...

REM sleep is essential for maintenance of body physiology and its deprivation is fatal. We observed that the levels of ALT and AST enzymes and pro-inflammatory cytokines like IL-1β, IL-6 and IL-12 circulating in the blood of REM sleep deprived rats increased in proportion to the extent of sleep loss. ...

Among patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) both obstructive and central sleep apnea (SA) are associated with increased sympathetic activity. However, the day-night pattern of cardiac autonomic nervous system modulation in CHF patients with and without sleep apnea is unknown. Twenty-five CHF patients underwent polysomnography with simultaneous beat-to-beat blood pressure ...

Recent evidence suggests that smoking during the night is an indicator of nicotine dependence and predicts smoking cessation failure. Night smokers are likely to experience disturbance to their sleep cycle when they wake to smoke, but we are not aware of the prevalence of night smokers' self-reported sleep disturbance. Because ...

BACKGROUND: Sleep disturbance may affect smoking cessation efforts. We describe sleep changes across three months among women in a smoking cessation program and tested whether sleep disturbances at baseline and 1month post-quit attempt predicted smoking status at three months. METHODS: Participants (N=322) were women in a randomized, clinical trial for ...

Objective Sleep is one of the major means to maintain health. The association of short sleep duration with obesity, diabetes, fatty liver and behavioral factors requires further exploration. Methods A total of 8157 Japanese men who underwent health evaluations were divided into 3 groups by sleep duration <5 hours, 5~<7 ...

Studies have shown that cigarette smoking is associated with sleep disorders in the general population. But studies examining the association between smokeless tobacco use, second-hand smoke exposure and insufficient rest/sleep are limited. We examined the association between smoking, smokeless tobacco use (n=83,072), second-hand smoke exposure (n=28,557) and insufficient rest/sleep among ...

Obstructive sleep apnea is a diagnosis that ophthalmologists can screen for when a patient presents with certain risk factors. Recent literature provides strong data for associations between sleep apnea and ocular disorders. A potentially serious disorder, sleep apnea can lead to many systemic and ocular complications. Recent findings provide data ...

Sleep apnea is a rare but well-known clinical feature of disorders of the craniocervical junction. It may be obstructive or central in nature, and rarely presents without other neurological symptoms. We report the cases of two children, presenting with isolated central sleep apnea leading to a diagnosis of type I ...

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is common disease in patients with sleep apnea syndrome (SAS), which is considered to be responsible for secondary and nocturnal hypertension. In this study, we assessed blood pressure (BP) changes in SAS patients with CKD. Of 460 Japanese outpatients with suspected SAS who underwent ambulatory BP ...

We have developed a low-cost, real-time sleep apnea monitoring system ''Apnea MedAssist" for recognizing obstructive sleep apnea episodes with a high degree of accuracy for both home and clinical care applications. The fully automated system uses patient's single channel nocturnal ECG to extract feature sets, and uses the support vector ...

Central sleep apnea is an important but frequently missed clinical diagnosis. The purpose of this clinical case series is to demonstrate that in a subset of patients with central sleep apnea, inpatient telemetry ECG recordings may reveal a consistent relationship between changes in sinus rate, AV conduction, and the presence ...

Sleep disordered breathing with recurrent apneas is one of the most frequently encountered breathing disorder in adult humans and preterm infants. Recurrent apnea patients exhibit several co-morbidities including hypertension and persistent sympathetic activation. Intermittent hypoxia (IH) resulting from apneas appears to be the primary stimulus for evoking autonomic changes. The ...

Central sleep apnea (CSA) describes a group of conditions in which cessations in air flow occur without respiratory effort. In contrast, obstructive sleep apnea patients have ongoing respiratory effort during respiratory events. However, considerable overlap exists in the pathogenesis and clinical presentation of obstructive sleep apnea and CSA. A good ...

Case series. To analyze factors that contribute to the development of sleep apnea in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and upper cervical lesions. No large prospective study has analyzed the association between sleep apnea and upper cervical involvement resulting from RA. Furthermore, only 1 report in the literature describes a ...

There is growing recognition of cardiovascular consequences of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Recurrent episodes of airway obstructions result in hypoxia and hypercapnia increasing sympathetic neural tone, which in turn causes vasoconstriction and marked increases in blood pressure (BP). BP response to OSA may be important in understanding the absence of ...

This study investigated the outcomes of uvula-preserving palatopharyngoplasty (UPPPP) in patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS). Twenty men with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome received the UPPPP operation at our institution. We measured symptom changes after UPPPP using a visual analog scale (VAS), and all patients were examined with polysomnography ...

Sleep apnea is a common respiratory disorder during sleep, which is described as a cessation of airflow to the lungs that lasts at least for 10 s and is associated with at least 4% drop in blood's oxygen saturation level (S(a)O(2)). The current gold standard method for sleep apnea assessment ...

Detection of sleep apnea using electrocardiographic (ECG) parameters is noninvasive and inexpensive. Our approach is based on the hypothesis that the patient's sleep-wake cycle during episodes of sleep apnea modulates heart rate (HR) oscillations. These HR oscillations appear as low-frequency fluctuations of instantaneous HR (IHR) and can be detected using ...

We report on a patient with mental retardation and chronic hypercapnic respiratory failure who was found to have severe central apnea and periodic breathing while undergoing an evaluation of low oxygen saturation during wakefulness at rest. Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain, which was performed to uncover potential causes for ...

5-Hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) is a common neurotransmitter in the brain which plays an important role in the pathogenesis of sleep apnea. Dysfunction of 5-HT and 5-HT(2) receptors may lead to the collapse of the upper airway and the instability of respiratory control, which in turn produce apnea. Genioglossus (GG) is one ...

OBJECTIVE: To determine the point prevalence of sleep apnea in patients following oral and oropharyngeal cancer treatment at a major tertiary care referral center. STUDY DESIGN: A retrospective cross-sectional survey. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Twenty-four patients with established oral or oropharyngeal cancer were submitted to overnight polysomnography. The surgical group consisted ...

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death among adults in developed countries. An increase in prevalent cardiovascular risk factors (e.g., obesity, hypertension and diabetes) has led to a concerted effort to raise awareness of the need to use evidence-based strategies to help patients at risk of developing cardiovascular disease ...

To evaluate the different therapeutic possibilities for treating Sleep Apnea/ Hypoapnea Syndrome (SAHS), as well as the effectiveness of such treatments, and to evaluate the epidemiological and clinical aspects of this syndrome. We carried out a meta-analytical, observational and retrospective study by selecting a total of 13 articles, which provided ...

BACKGROUND: There is a significant relationship between obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and cardiovascular diseases. Reliability of new methods evaluating apnea in Holter ECG monitoring is still the matter of investigators' studies. METHODS: In 48-hour Holter ECG monitoring recordings of 63 patients, we assessed repeatability, comparing the results from both sleep ...

The association between sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) assessed by polysomnography and cardiac sympathetic nerve activity (SNA) assessed by cardiac iodine-123 metaiodobenzylguanidine (123I-MIBG) imaging has not been investigated in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). We performed cardiac 123I-MIBG scintigraphy and overnight polysomnography in 59 patients with stable CHF. The patients were ...

Obstructive sleep apnea and other sleep-related breathing disorders result in recurrent periods of oxygen deprivation (hypoxia), hypercapnia and an increase in the cellular production of reactive oxygen species (oxidative stress-related injury). Individuals with these disorders suffer from a variety of cellular abnormalities that result in cardiopulmonary dysfunctions, disturbances in sleep ...

Central apnea is caused by temporary failure in the pontomedullary pacemaker generating breathing rhythm, which results in the loss of ventilatory effort, and if it lasts 10 seconds or more it is defined as central apnea. This article reviews current knowledge on central sleep apnea.

Cardiovascular disease is still the leading cause of death in North America. To improve outcomes, it will likely be necessary to identify new potentially treatable conditions. Sleep apnea affects approximately 50% of patients with cardiovascular disease and is associated with increased cardiovascular risk. Continuous positive airway pressure is currently the ...

Sleep disorders, including sleep-disordered breathing and periodic limb movements during sleep, are associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular diseases, which are the leading causes of death in patients with ESRD. This study investigated the association between sleep disorders and mortality in patients with ESRD. Thirty patients on maintenance hemodialysis, ...

Transient ischemic attack (TIA) patients are at risk of recurrent vascular events. The primary objectives were to evaluate among TIA patients the prevalence of sleep apnea and among patients with sleep apnea auto-titrating continuous positive airway pressure (auto-CPAP) adherence. The secondary objective was to describe among TIA patients with sleep ...

Studies of the genetics of obstructive sleep apnea may be facilitated by identifying intermediate traits with high heritability that quantify etiological pathways, such as those related to respiratory control. Electrocardiogram (ECG)-based sleep spectrograms, measuring the coupling between respiratory modulation of ECG QRS-wave amplitude and heart rate variability, may provide measures ...

The endocannabinoid system promotes diverse effects on fat and glucose metabolism as well as on energy balance and sleep regulation. The role of N-acylethanolamides like oleoylethanolamide (OEA) and other endocannabinoids such as anandamide (AEA) and 2-arachidonyl-glycerol (2-AG) has not yet been investigated in patients with sleep apnea. We measured circulating ...

Obstructive and central sleep apneas are treatable disorders, which contribute to cardiovascular morbidity in older adults. Younger adults with Marfan syndrome may also be at risk for sleep apnea, but the relation between cardiovascular complications and sleep apnea is unknown. We used MiniScreen8 portable monitoring devices for polygraphy in 68 ...

Healthy aging is associated with cognitive deficits similar to those found in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). As in OSA, older adults show compensatory cerebral activation during cognitive demands in the face of neurocognitive decline. The current study examines whether the combination of increasing age and sleep apnea will lead to ...

OBJECTIVE: High-altitude studies of sleep disordered breathing (SDB) show increases in apnea hypopnea indices with elevation gains. Hypoxic changes, rather than reductions in atmospheric pressure (AP), are thought to be the driving factor. Ambient pressure-related changes in SDB have not been extensively studied at low altitude. We performed a cross-sectional ...

OBJECTIVE: While the Berlin Sleep Questionnaire (BSQ) was developed to identify patients at high risk of having sleep apnea, assessment can be difficult in patients suffering from impaired cognitive functions (i.e., stroke patients). We therefore created a modified version of the questionnaire to be used in patients' bed partners to ...

OBJECT: One of the feared consequences of craniovertebral junction diseases is apnea. Although several cases of patients with central apnea have been described, obstructive sleep apnea has been identified as the most frequent manifestation of sleep respiratory disorder. Neuronal involvement may be responsible for both central and obstructive apneas. The ...

To describe sex differences in the associations between severity of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and measures of obesity in body regions defined using both dual-energy absorptiometry and traditional anthropometric measures in a sleep-clinic sample. A prospective case-series observational study. The Western Australian Sleep Health Study operating out of the Sir ...

To evaluate the effects of sildenafil on the autonomic nervous system in patients with severe obstructive sleep apnea. Thirteen male patients with severe obstructive sleep apnea (mean age 43+/-10 years with a mean body mass index of 26.7+/-1.9 kg/m(2)) received a single 50-mg dose of sildenafil or a placebo at ...

Although obstructive sleep apnea is associated with physiological perturbations that increase risk of hypertension and are proatherogenic, it is uncertain whether sleep apnea is associated with increased stroke risk in the general population. To quantify the incidence of ischemic stroke with sleep apnea in a community-based sample of men and ...

Chronic pulmonary disease and sleep apnea have been associated with the development of atrial fibrillation (AF). The purpose of this study was to characterize the atrial electrical changes that occur with hypercapnia and hypoxemia and to determine their role in AF development. Seventeen sheep (6 control, 5 hypercapnia, 6 hypoxemia) ...

Sleep apnea syndrome is increasingly recognized in peritoneal dialysis patients; however, its prognostic implication in this population is unknown. To study this, we prospectively followed the clinical outcome of 93 peritoneal dialysis patients with baseline polysomnography. Of these, 51 were diagnosed with the syndrome defined by an apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) ...

Cognitive dysfunction and sleep disruption are two frequent but underestimated features of adult onset myotonic dystrophy type 1 (MD1). In order to investigate the MD1 cognitive profile and its relationship with sleep disruption, 23 patients with genetically proved MD1 (mild-moderate in severity) underwent neuropsychological (nps) and polysomnography assessment. Patients scored ...