Sleep deprivation in healthy elderly men and women: effects on mood and on sleep during recovery.
Elderly women had better recovery sleep than elderly men following 36-h sleep deprivation, as evidenced by higher sleep maintenance/efficiency and more slow wave sleep (particularly in the amount of stage 4 sleep). During recovery sleep, both groups showed REM latency reduction (two men and three women had seven sleep-onset REM periods out of a total of 40 recovery nights), decrease in percentage of early REM sleep and increase in whole-night REM sleep time. Total Mood Disturbance scores on the Profile of Mood States increased in both men and women following sleep deprivation (reflecting a decrease in vigor and increase in fatigue and tension). While the increase tended to be greater in women, in both groups self-ratings of mood returned to baseline after 1 night of recovery sleep. These observations underscore the importance of gender in determining late-life sleep structure and suggest that the ability of older women to achieve slow wave sleep and to have long uninterrupted sleep in greater than that of men.
D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D009207:Myoclonus / Q000503:physiopathology; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*; D012891:Sleep Apnea Syndromes / Q000503:physiopathology; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000502:physiology*; D012893:Sleep Wake Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology; D012895:Sleep, REM / Q000502:physiology