Emotional expressiveness in sleep-deprived healthy adults.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of sleep deprivation on emotional expression and subjective emotional experience in a highly controlled, laboratory setting. Twenty-three healthy adult participants watched positive (amusing) and negative (sad) film clips before and after they were randomly assigned to a night of sleep deprivation or a normal sleep control condition. The intensity of their facial expressiveness while viewing the films was coded by human judges and compared to their subjective emotional responses. Relative to the control group, sleep-deprived participants demonstrated less expressiveness, especially in response to positive stimuli. Subjective responses were not significantly different between the sleep-deprived and control groups. These preliminary results suggest that sleep deprivation is associated with attenuated emotional expressiveness in healthy adults.

Brugada ST elevation masquerading as ST elevation myocardial infarction.

Brugada syndrome (BS) is a genetic cardiac syndrome first described in 1992 that is characterized by distinct abnormalities noted in leads V1 and V2 on electrocardiogram. It often leads to syncope or even sudden death in affected patients due to its propensity for ventricular tachycardia and fibrillation. The characteristic ST elevation seen in these patients can be confused with ischemic ST elevation. We present a case where a febrile illness unmasked BS and the ST changes seen were believed to be ischemic.

Sleep deprivation potentiates HPA axis stress reactivity in healthy adults.

OBJECTIVE: This article describes an experiment that was designed to investigate the effects of sleep deprivation on physiological stress responses in healthy adults. METHOD: Twenty-six participants, ages 22-49, completed a 3-night laboratory experiment with randomization to one night of sleep-deprivation or a normal-sleep control condition. After a night of baseline sleep, 12 participants were sleep deprived and 14 were not. After the sleep manipulation, each participant completed the Trier Social Stress Test, a task that requires delivering a speech and performing difficult arithmetic in front of a stern, three-person panel. The stressor was administered from 5:00 p.m.-5:30 p.m. and saliva samples were collected 20 and 5 min before (baseline) and 5, 20, and 40 min after the stressor. Samples were assayed for cortisol (a biomarker for the HPA axis) and alpha-amylase (a putative biomarker for the sympatho-adrenal medullar system). RESULTS: Sleep deprivation was associated with higher cortisol levels at baseline (p < .0001) and an amplified cortisol response to the stressor relative to control participants (pinteraction = 0.0039). Alpha-amylase showed a significant main effect of the stressor (p = .0026), but there was no effect of sleep loss at baseline or in response to the stressor. CONCLUSIONS: Sleep deprivation is associated with both elevated resting cortisol release and with an exaggerated cortisol response to a stressor indicative of elevated HPA axis responses in healthy adults. Individual differences in the magnitude of this response may represent a risk factor for psychological and physical health consequences associated with heightened cortisol exposure.

Sleep deprivation and stressors: evidence for elevated negative affect in response to mild stressors when sleep deprived.

Stress often co-occurs with inadequate sleep duration, and both are believed to impact mood and emotion. It is not yet known whether inadequate sleep simply increases the intensity of subsequent stress responses or interacts with stressors in more complicated ways. To address this issue, we investigated the effects of one night of total sleep deprivation on subjective stress and mood in response to low-stress and high-stress cognitive testing conditions in healthy adult volunteers in two separate experiments (total N = 53). Sleep was manipulated in a controlled, laboratory setting and stressor intensity was manipulated by changing difficulty of cognitive tasks, time pressure, and feedback about performance. Sleep-deprived participants reported greater subjective stress, anxiety, and anger than rested controls following exposure to the low-stressor condition, but not in response to the high-stressor condition, which elevated negative mood and stress about equally for both sleep conditions. These results suggest that sleep deprivation lowers the psychological threshold for the perception of stress from cognitive demands but does not selectively increase the magnitude of negative affect in response to high-stress performance demands.