The REM microarousal and REM duration as the potential indicator in paradoxical insomnia.

Objective: Although paradoxical insomnia is a prevalent subtype of chronic insomnia, the etiology of it is unclear. Contrary to complaints of little or no sleep, polysomnography (PSG) findings show that paradoxical insomnia patients have near normal sleep macrostructure. The purpose of this study is to determine the changes of microstructure and explore the etiology of paradoxical insomnia.

Methods: The PSG findings of 89 paradoxical insomnia patients were compared with those of 41 gender balanced healthy controls without sleep complaints. All subjects underwent nocturnal PSG recordings. Conventional PSG measures and microarousals were quantified and statistically analyzed. Receiver operating characteristic curve and correlation analysis were used to evaluate the potential of REM sleep microarousals and REM duration as indicators of paradoxical insomnia.

Results: Compared with the controls, paradoxical insomnia patients had no significant differences in sleep macrostructures. Statistical analysis showed that non-rapid eye movement (NREM) microarousals revealed no significant differences between paradoxical insomnia patients and controls. Noticeably, more spontaneous microarousals appeared in rapid eye movement (REM) stage for paradoxical insomnia patients. Based on receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC), the optimal cutoff value of REM sleep microarousals could predict paradoxical insomnia. Furthermore, a positive correlation between microarousals in REM sleep and the duration of REM sleep was presented in paradoxical insomnia patients.

Conclusions: The frequency of REM microarousals and the duration of REM sleep could reflect the real sleep state of paradoxical insomnia patients. That suggested PSG investigation extended to microarousal could be helpful to understand the etiology in paradoxical insomnia.