Dataset Information

Differential effect of an anticholinergic antidepressant on sleep-dependent memory consolidation.

ABSTRACT:

Study objectives

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is considered critical to the consolidation of procedural memory - the memory of skills and habits. Many antidepressants strongly suppress REM sleep, however, and procedural memory consolidation has been shown to be impaired in depressed patients on antidepressant therapy. As a result, it is important to determine whether antidepressive therapy can lead to amnestic impairment. We thus investigated the effects of the anticholinergic antidepressant amitriptyline on sleep-dependent memory consolidation.

Design

Double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, parallel-group study.

Setting

Sleep laboratory.

Participants

Twenty-five healthy men (mean age: 26.8 ± 5.6 y).

Interventions

75 mg amitriptyline versus placebo.

Measurements/results

To test memory consolidation, a visual discrimination task, a finger-tapping task, the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test, and the Rey Auditory-Verbal Learning Test were performed. Sleep was measured using polysomnography. Our findings show that amitriptyline profoundly suppressed REM sleep and impaired perceptual skill learning, but not motor skill or declarative learning.

Conclusions

Our study is the first to demonstrate that an antidepressant can affect procedural memory consolidation in healthy subjects. Moreover, considering the results of a recent study, in which selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors were shown not to impair procedural memory consolidation, our findings suggest that procedural memory consolidation is not facilitated by the characteristics of REM sleep captured by visual sleep scoring, but rather by the high cholinergic tone associated with REM sleep. Our study contributes to the understanding of potentially undesirable behavioral effects of amitriptyline.

SUBMITTER: Goerke M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3985094 | biostudies-literature | 2014 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Differential effect of an anticholinergic antidepressant on sleep-dependent memory consolidation.

Goerke Monique M Cohrs Stefan S Rodenbeck Andrea A Kunz Dieter D

Sleep 20140501 5

<h4>Study objectives</h4>Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is considered critical to the consolidation of procedural memory - the memory of skills and habits. Many antidepressants strongly suppress REM sleep, however, and procedural memory consolidation has been shown to be impaired in depressed patients on antidepressant therapy. As a result, it is important to determine whether antidepressive therapy can lead to amnestic impairment. We thus investigated the effects of the anticholinergic antidepr ...[more]

PMID: 24790277

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Project description:BackgroundPrevious studies have revealed both sleep alterations and prospective memory (PM) impairments in breast cancer (BC) patients. PM refers to memory of intended actions and is crucial for daily living tasks and treatment compliance. As sleep is known to favor memory consolidation, one may expect that changes in sleep quality related to BC would have an impact on PM performance. This study aimed at assessing sleep-dependent consolidation of intentions using an ecological, virtual reality-based PM task in BC patients not treated with chemotherapy.Materials and methodsThirty-seven early stages BC patients and 21 healthy controls (HC) participated in this study. PM was assessed using a virtual reality task, during which participants learnt a list of intentions and recalled them after a retention interval filled with a day awake or a night of sleep monitored by polysomnography. Sleep spindles and slow waves, brain oscillations involved in sleep-dependent memory consolidation, were quantified automatically using the Aseega software (Physip). Subjective sleep disturbances and markers of quality of life (psychological distress, fatigue, and well-being) were assessed by questionnaires.ResultsGreater PM performance was observed after sleep than after an equivalent period of daytime wakefulness for both groups (HC and BC). PM performance after sleep did not differ significantly between groups. Yet, BC patients reported greater sleep disturbances than HC which were related with poorer intentions retrieval, greater psychological distress, fatigue and poorer well-being. The frequency of spindles was higher and the amplitude of slow waves lower in BC patients compared to HC. However, no significant association was observed between polysomnography parameters and PM scores in the whole sample of participants.ConclusionAlthough subtle changes in brain oscillations involved in sleep-dependent memory consolidation were observed, these changes did not significantly impair overnight PM consolidation in BC patients. Nevertheless, poorer PM performance was associated with greater sleep complaints which in turn were related to poorer quality of life. Overall, these data suggest that sleep-dependent PM consolidation mechanisms are not altered in early stages BC patients not treated with chemotherapy. Further investigations are needed to understand the association between markers of quality of life and sleep-dependent memory consolidation.

Dataset Information

Differential effect of an anticholinergic antidepressant on sleep-dependent memory consolidation.

Study objectives

Design

Setting

Participants

Interventions

Measurements/results

Conclusions

Publications

Differential effect of an anticholinergic antidepressant on sleep-dependent memory consolidation.

Similar Datasets

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