Sleep Disorders Flashcards
Define Insomnia
Chronic inability to obtain the necessary amount/quality of sleep to maintain adequate daytime behaviour
What are the types of insomnia?
- Chronic Primary where there’s generally no identifiable cause
- Temporary Secondary due to pain, grief or other crisis
What are the differences between nightmares and night terrors?
- Nightmares occur during REM sleep
- Night Terrors occur in Deep Sleep
- Nightmares are remembered
- Night Terrors aren’t remembered
- Nightmares stop when you wake up
- Night Terrors involve thrashing, screaming, sit/standing and opening eyes
At what stage of the sleep cycle does somnambulism occur?
Mostly Stage 4, but can be other parts of Slow Wave Sleep
At what age is somnambulism most common?
in children and young adults.
Probably because Deep Sleep declines with Age
What is narcolepsy?
Sudden descent from awake state to REM sleep
What causes Narcolepsy?
Dysfunctional Orexin release from excitatory neurons in the hypothalamus
What is a circadian rhythm?
Biological Systems show oscillations within a 24 hour period
Where is the ‘master clock’ for sleep?
In the Suprachiasmic Nuclei of the Hypothalamus
The neurons here contain an inherent 24 hour cycle
What trains the 24 hour cycle of the SCN neurons?
External cues such as light and dark (maybe because optic nerve fibres feed into the SCN at the chiasm)
What happens if the SCN is destroyed?
You lose the circadian rhythm of sleep