[Neurophysiologic aspects of sleep deprivation in depression].

Study of EEG in 45 patients, suffering from endogenic and psychogenic depression, in the state of rest, in mental and emotional loads, SGR, orienting reaction and night sleep before and after a course of sleep deprivation has shown that neurophysiological shifts in the cycle alertness-sleep have one direction. The weakening of depression was accompanied by rather unidirected alterations of neurophysiological relations, which testified to the normalization of biological periods of the organism.

[Nocturnal polygraphic studies during the treatment of depressed patients with sleep deprivation].

In 33 patients with endogenic and psychogenic depression treated by a course of total agrypnotic therapy, the time-course of the clinical and psychological parameters was compared with the findings provided by polygraphic examinations of night sleep. Sleep deprivation lessened depression by regulating the pattern of sleep in depressive patients which was expressed both in its deepening and the improvement of its total and cyclic organization. The efficacy of the agrypnotic therapy was more effective in cases when the quantitative parameters of sleep were disrupted less severely and when gross pathological changes of its general pattern predominated.