Search Our Scientific Publications & Authors

J Sleep Res 2022 Jun 20:e13672. Epub 2022 Jun 20.

School of Medicine, National University of Ireland Galway, Galway, Ireland.

Parasomnias are undesirable events that occur during sleep. They can be classified into rapid eye movement parasomnias and non-rapid eye movement parasomnias. Those who experience parasomnias may be anxious about travel for many reasons, including the occurrence of unwanted events during the trip, increased exposure to environmental trigger factors, and the propensity for harm to occur due to unfamiliar surroundings while travelling. Read More

J Sleep Res 2022 Jun 17:e13658. Epub 2022 Jun 17.

College of Education, Psychology, and Social Work, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.

Sleep restriction therapies likely drive improvement in insomnia in middle childhood via increases in homeostatic sleep pressure (e.g., evening sleepiness). Read More

PLoS One 2022 16;17(6):e0269392. Epub 2022 Jun 16.

Department of Medical, Huzhou Normal University, Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.

Background And Objectives: Sleep disorders related to Parkinson's disease (PD) have recently attracted increasing attention, but there are few clinical reports on the correlation of Parkinson's disease patients with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD). Therefore, this study conducted a cognitive function examination for Parkinson's disease patients and discussed the application effect of three algorithms in the screening of influencing factors and risk prediction effects.

Methods: Three algorithms (logistic regression, machine learning-based regression trees and random forest) were used to establish a prediction model for PD-RBD patients, and the application effects of the three algorithms in the screening of influencing factors and the risk prediction of PD-RBD were discussed. Read More

Mov Disord 2022 Jun;37(6):1327

Department of Neurology, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

Ugeskr Laeger 2022 Jun;184(24)

Neurologisk Afdeling, Københavns Universitetshospital - Bispebjerg Hospital.

Pathologic gambling is a rare but severe side effect of dopamine agonists (DA). Low dosage DA, as given when treating restless legs syndrome (RLS), has been thought only to have mild side effects. This case report describes two patients with low dosage pramipexole for RLS, who developed gambling addiction for a decade, highly affecting their quality of life. Read More

Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep 2022 Jun 14. Epub 2022 Jun 14.

Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, Sapienza University, Via dei Marsi 78, 00185, Rome, Italy.

Purpose Of Review: Restless sleep disorder (RSD) is a recently identified pediatric sleep disorder characterized by frequent movements during sleep associated with daytime symptoms. In this review we summarize the expanding evidence of the clinical presentation of RSD, potential pathophysiology, associated comorbidities, and current treatment options that will help the pediatrician identify children with RSD in a timely manner.

Recent Findings: RSD is diagnosed in 7. Read More

Arch Bronconeumol 2021 Oct;57(10):654

Pulmonology Department, Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.

BMC Psychiatry 2022 06 7;22(1):383. Epub 2022 Jun 7.

I Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Early Intervention, Medical University of Lublin, Głuska 1 Street, 20-439, Lublin, Poland.

Background: Sleep paralysis (SP) is a transitional dissociative state associated with the REM sleep phase that affects approximately 28.3% of the student population during their lifetime. The reasons for the high prevalence of SP in the student population are not entirely clear. Read More

Sleep Med Clin 2022 Jun 22;17(2):307-314. Epub 2022 Apr 22.

Washington University Sleep Medicine Center, Department of Neurology, Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, 1600 S. Brentwood Boulevard, #600, St. Louis, MO 63144, USA. Electronic address:

Patients suffering from neurodegenerative conditions frequently report sleep complaints, such as insomnia and excessive daytime sleepiness. These symptoms are likely multifactorial, caused by their underlying neurologic disorder and also by medications and other comorbidities associated with the progressive condition. A detailed history, sleep logs, actigraphy, or polysomnography may be necessary to properly diagnosis and manage these patients. Read More

Sleep Med Clin 2022 Jun 22;17(2):295-305. Epub 2022 Apr 22.

Neurology Service, Hospital Clinic de Barcelona, C/ Villarroel 180, Barcelona 08036, Spain. Electronic address:

Sleep paralysis is rare in the elderly but may occur particularly in families suffering from this phenomenon. In a minority of patients with disorders of arousal, the episodes persist until the age of 70. Zolpidem and other medications may induce sleepwalking and sleep eating-related syndrome. Read More

Sleep 2022 May 24. Epub 2022 May 24.

Center for Investigation and Research on Sleep, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland.

Study Objectives: Sleepwalking, confusional arousals, and sleep terrors are parasomnias occurring out of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. Several previous studies have described EEG changes associated with NREM parasomnia episodes, but it remains unclear whether these changes are specific to parasomnia episodes or whether they are part of the normal awakening process. Here we directly compared regional brain activity, measured with high-density (hd-) EEG, between parasomnia episodes and normal awakenings (without behavioral manifestations of parasomnia). Read More

J Neuroinflammation 2022 May 24;19(1):116. Epub 2022 May 24.

Department of Neurology and Institute of Neurology, Ruijin Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200025, China.

Background: Inflammations play crucial role in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD), however, their possible value in the diagnosis or tracking of the progress of PD is still limited, because of discordant results in the literature and a lack of information regarding its reproducibility. Thus, overall longitudinal and cross-sectional studies are needed. This multicentre study was designed to investigate the association between multiple peripheral immune biomarkers and the development and progression of PD. Read More

Neurosci Lett 2022 06 21;782:136692. Epub 2022 May 21.

Department of Neurology and Suzhou Clinical Research Center of Neurological Disease, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou City, Jiangsu 215004, China. Electronic address:

Objective: Previous studies have shown the essential role of inflammation in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD). However, the association of RBD in Parkinson's disease (PD) with peripheral blood inflammatory cytokines is still unknown. We investigated the relationship between inflammatory cytokines and the clinical characteristics of PD patients with RBD. Read More

Sleep Med 2022 Aug 13;96:70-78. Epub 2022 May 13.

Department of Pharmaceutical Outcomes & Policy, University of Florida, College of Pharmacy, 1225 Center Drive, Gainesville, FL, 32610-0496, USA; Center for Drug Evaluation & Safety, Department of Pharmaceutical Outcomes & Policy, University of Florida, College of Pharmacy, 1225 Center Drive, Gainesville, FL, 32610-0496, USA. Electronic address:

Objective/background: Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a complex condition associated with circadian rhythm that disrupts sleep and can cause multisystemic consequences. This study assesses pharmacotherapy treatment initiation, estimates annual treatment prevalence, and assesses treatment patterns for early-onset idiopathic RLS.

Methods: We used the MarketScan Commercial Claims Database from 2012 to 2019 to conduct a new user retrospective cohort study. Read More

Mov Disord 2022 May;37(5):883-885

Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Rev Assoc Med Bras (1992) 2022 May;68(5):574-578

Sisli Hamidiye Etfal Training and Research Hospital, Otolaryngology Department - Istanbul, Turkey.

Objective: Obesity is one of the etiological factors of sleep disorders (e.g., obstructive sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome). Read More

Int J Environ Res Public Health 2022 04 29;19(9). Epub 2022 Apr 29.

Department of Prosthetic Dentistry, University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova, 200349 Craiova, Romania.

Bruxism is a repetitive activity of the masticatory muscles, which determine teeth grinding or clenching, associated with rigidity, bracing, or thrusting of the mandibula. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of possible bruxism in 328 students attending the Faculty of Dental Medicine, University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova, and its associations with stress and other manifestations of the temporo-mandibular disorder. This was a questionnaire-based study to collect information on self-evaluation of bruxism presence, frequency of specific episodes, stress, anxiety, and other manifestations of temporo-mandibular disorder. Read More

Sci Rep 2022 May 13;12(1):7973. Epub 2022 May 13.

Department of Neuroimaging, Sleep and Brain Plasticity Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King's College London (KCL), De Crespigny Park, Box 089, London, SE5 8AF, UK.

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) is a REM parasomnia that often predicts the later occurrence of alpha-synucleinopathies. Variants in the gene encoding for the lysosomal enzyme glucocerebrosidase, GBA, strongly increase the risk of RBD. In a GBA1-mouse model recently shown to mimic prodromal stages of α-synucleinopathy, we now demonstrate striking REM and NREM electroencephalographic sleep abnormalities accompanied by distinct structural changes in the more widespread sleep neurocircuitry. Read More

Sleep 2022 05 5;45(5). Epub 2021 Dec 5.

Department of Psychology, Sapienza, University of Rome, Rome, Italy.

Study Objectives: Sleep talking (ST) has been rarely studied as an isolated phenomenon. Late investigations over the psycholinguistic features of vocal production in ST pointed to coherence with wake language formal features. Therefore, we investigated the EEG correlates of Verbal ST as the overt manifestation of sleep-related language processing, with the hypothesis of shared electrophysiological correlates with wake language production. Read More

Sleep 2022 05 2;45(5). Epub 2022 Feb 2.

Department of Pediatrics, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.

Chron Respir Dis 2022 Jan-Dec;19:14799731211052301

Department of Experimental Dentistry, 49550Wroclaw Medical University, Wroclaw, Poland.

We aimed to evaluate and compare the effects of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) and mandibular advancement device (MAD) in reducing the intensity of sleep bruxism (SB) in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Forty-eight adults with OSA were subjected to single-night full polysomnography (PSG) in the Sleep Laboratory of the Wroclaw Medical University. The respiratory events and bruxism episodes were scored according to the standards of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Read More

Ann Acad Med Singap 2022 04;51(4):228-235

Neuroscience and Behavioural Disorders Programme, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore.

Introduction: In a subset of adults with non-rapid eye movement (NREM) parasomnias, clinical variants might be violent in nature and can potentially result in unintentional but considerable harm. As such, there is substantial interest on the forensic ramifications of these sleep behaviours.

Methods: This review examined the diagnostic criteria for parasomnias established in the context of international classification systems; medicolegal case reports; legal frameworks; and court cases in and outside of Singapore, to provide an overview of the implications of NREM parasomnias. Read More

Neuroimage Clin 2022 26;34:103024. Epub 2022 Apr 26.

Medical University of Innsbruck, Department of Neurology, Innsbruck, Austria; Medical University of Innsbruck, Neuroimaging Research Core Facility, Innsbruck, Austria. Electronic address:

Study Objectives: Studies on brain iron content in restless legs syndrome (RLS) using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are heterogeneous. In this study, we sought to leverage the availability of a large dataset including a range of iron-sensitive MRI techniques to reassess the association between brain iron content and RLS with added statistical power and to compare these results to previous studies.

Methods: The relaxation rates R, R', and R* and quantitative susceptibility are MRI parameters strongly correlated to iron content. Read More

Sleep Med 2022 Jun 9;94:26-30. Epub 2022 Apr 9.

Institute of Neurogenomics, Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Centre for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany; Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (SyNergy), Munich, Germany; Institute of Human Genetics, School of Medicine, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany. Electronic address:

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a common sleep-related movement disorder in populations of European descent and disease risk is strongly influenced by genetic factors. Common variants have been assessed extensively in several genome-wide association studies, but the contribution of rarer genetic variation has not been investigated at this scale. We therefore genotyped a case-control set of 9246 individuals for mainly rare and low frequency exonic variants using the Illumina ExomeChip. Read More

Neurology 2022 Apr 29. Epub 2022 Apr 29.

Department of Neurology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL.

A 77 year-old-man presents with chorea, parasomnias, dysarthria and dysphagia, and cognitive issues. A broad work-up reveals positive anti-IgLON5 antibody. This case report represents a "textbook" example of anti-IgLON5 syndrome. Read More

J Clin Sleep Med 2022 05;18(5):1413-1418

Institute of Human Genetics, University Hospital Bonn, Bonn, Germany.

Study Objectives: Sleep disturbance is common in long-COVID (LC). Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is characterized by sleep disturbance and has been reported after viral infections. Therefore, we evaluated RLS symptoms cross-sectionally in individuals with LC at both current and pre-coronavirus disease 2019 (pre-COVID-19) time points. Read More

Mov Disord 2022 Jun 28;37(6):1326. Epub 2022 Apr 28.

Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

Parkinsonism Relat Disord 2022 05 21;98:47-52. Epub 2022 Apr 21.

Department of Neurology, Antwerp University Hospital, Drie Eikenstraat 655, 2650, Edegem, Belgium; Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Translational Neurosciences, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610, Wilrijk, Belgium; Born-Bunge Institute, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610, Wilrijk, Belgium. Electronic address:

Background: Wearable technology research suggests that nocturnal movements are disturbed in early Parkinson's disease (PD). In this study, we investigate if patients also already experience impaired bed mobility before PD diagnosis. Furthermore, we explore its association with motor and nonmotor features and its value for phenoconversion and disease progression prediction. Read More

Br Dent J 2022 04 22;232(8):515-521. Epub 2022 Apr 22.

Consultant in Restorative Dentistry, Liverpool University Dental Hospital, Pembroke Place, Liverpool, L3 5PS, UK.

Bruxism may lead to changes or damage to the oral and perioral tissues. Bruxism may occur during sleep or when awake. Many patients will not require active management; however, for some, intervention is required. Read More