Alteration of sleep microstructure in psychiatric disorders.

Macrostructure describes the temporal organization of sleep based on successive epochs of conventional length, while microstructure, which is analyzed on the basis of the scoring of phasic events, provides additional important dynamic characteristics in the evaluation of both normal and pathological sleep processes. Relationships between sleep, sleep disorders, and psychiatric disorders are quite complex, and it clearly appears that both the macrostructure and the microstructure of sleep are valuable physiologically and clinically. Psychiatric patients often complain about their sleep, and they may show sleep abnormalities that increase with the severity of their illness. Changes in the occurrence and frequency of phasic events during sleep may be associated with specific psychiatric disorders, and may provide valuable information for both diagnosis and prognosis of these disorders.