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P300 amplitude in subjects with primary insomnia is modulated by their sleep quality
Alessandra Devoto1, Cristiano Violani, Fabio Lucidi
1Department of Psychology, University of Rome La Sapienza, Via dei Marsi, 78, I-00185, Rome, Italy. alessandra.devoto@uniroma1.it
Objective:
The hyperarousal hypothesis is evaluated while controlling the influence of the quality of sleep in the night preceding the evaluation.
Method:
Eleven primary insomniacs and 11 healthy age matched controls participated to the study. Participants filled in 2 weeks of sleep logs and self-monitored their subjective tension the evening before and the morning after each night. Afterwards, subjects were called in to the Lab for a recording session of the P300 ERP (oddball paradigm) once after a night of bad sleep quality (N-) and once after a night of good sleep quality (N+).
Results:
The main result of the present study indicated that the P300 amplitude at Fz in insomniacs resulted higher following a N- and lower following a N+ with respect to controls.
Conclusions:
This result suggests that cortical hyperarousal in primary insomniacs is not a stable individual characteristic, but is associated with the poor quality of their nocturnal sleep.