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Depression, Sleep Disorders, and DA

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Dopamine and Sleep

Abstract

Sleep is the quintessential circadian behavior, driven by homeostatic and environmental forces, and essential for survival. Disruption of circadian rhythms leads to numerous metabolic, cardiovascular, and neuropsychiatric diseases. Depression displays its own rhythmic pattern with recurrent episodes frequently driven by environmental cues including poor sleep. Insomnia, defined as difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep or non-restorative sleep that causes significant daytime impairment, affects the majority of individuals with depression. Insomnia symptoms frequently persist even after remission from affective disturbances and are significant risk factors for recurrence and poor clinical outcomes. Research has demonstrated a bidirectional and longitudinal risk relationship between insomnia and depressive disorders, however the exact mechanisms underlying these associations remain unknown. The evidence implicates dopamine as a neurobiological factor associated with symptoms of insomnia and depression. Dopamine is a neuromodulator that regulates reward processing, arousal states, affect, and mood regulation. However, the putative role of dopamine in insomnia and depression has largely been underappreciated and understudied. Indeed, elucidating the common dopaminergic pathways linking mood and sleep disorders may shed light on the development and progression of common symptoms of both disorders and provide targets for interventions. It is reasonable to glean from this chapter that a common alteration in mesolimbic dopaminergic signaling pathway underlies the comorbidity of depression, insomnia, and circadian rhythm disorders. In the present chapter, our goals are to (a) provide a brief overview of the role of dopamine in sleep and wake, with a focus on sleep architecture; (b) describe the role of dopamine in depression; (c) discuss the possible implications of sleep architecture-mediated dopaminergic changes for depression, and (d) discuss the possible implications of circadian-mediated dopaminergic changes for depression.

And yet in certain of these cases there is mere anger and grief and sad dejection of mind…they are suspicious of poisoning or flee to the desert from misanthropy or turn suspicious or contract a hatred of life. Or if at any time a relaxation takes place, in most cases hilarity supervenes. The individuals are dull or stern, dejected or unreasonably torpid…they also become peevish, dispirited and start up from a disturbed sleep.

—Arateus (from: Taylor and Fink 2006)

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Correspondence to Traci J. Speed .

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Speed, T.J., Finan, P.H. (2016). Depression, Sleep Disorders, and DA. In: Monti, J., Pandi-Perumal, S., Chokroverty, S. (eds) Dopamine and Sleep. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46437-4_9

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