Psychometric, Polysomnographic, and Neuroendocrine Measures in Subjects at High Risk for Psychiatric Disorders: Preliminary Results

Abstract

We report on the psychometric, polysomnographic, and neuroendocrine status of 12 subjects at high familial risk for psychiatric disorders and of 10 healthy subjects not at high risk. The psychometric measurements in the high-risk probands revealed an accentuated ‘stress personality’ pattern and an increased neuroticism score. Their all-night EEG sleep tended to be shallower than that of the control subjects (i.e., decreased sleep efficiency, more frequent awakenings, less slow-wave sleep), whereas they did not differ on REM sleep parameters. The challenge of the limbic-hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical system with corticotropin-releasing hormone after pretreatment with dexamethasone yielded no differences in cortisol secretion between the groups. On an intraindividual level, however, all subjects at high risk except one were found to be conspicuous in at least one of the three states examined.