medRxiv
February 17, 2026
Constantin Weberpals, A. Specht, Natasja Bonde Andersen et al.
Abstract Type 1 narcolepsy (NT1), a disorder caused by the loss of hypocretin/orexin transmission, is characterized by daytime sleepiness and symptoms where Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, a state normally occurring from middle to late in the night, can intermingle with wakefulness. This results in cataplexy and sleep paralysis, episodes of muscle paralysis when awake, or in the generation of...
Journal of Sleep Research
October 1, 2025
Claudia Picard-Deland, Matteo Cesari, Ambra Stefani et al.
Parasomnias are abnormal behaviours or mental experiences during sleep or the sleep-wake transition. As disorders of arousal (DOA) or REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) can be difficult to capture in the sleep laboratory and may need to be diagnosed in large communities, new home diagnostic devices are being developed, including actigraphy, EEG headbands, as well as 2D infrared and 3D time of...
Neurotherapeutics
November 23, 2020
Ambra Stefani, Birgit Högl
65 citations
Nightmare disorder and recurrent isolated sleep paralysis are rapid eye movement (REM) parasomnias that cause significant distress to those who suffer from them. Nightmare disorder can cause insomnia due to fear of falling asleep through dread of nightmare occurrence. Hyperarousal and impaired fear extinction are involved in nightmare generation, as well as brain areas involved in emotion...
Handbook of clinical neurology
2019
Ambra Stefani, Evi Holzknecht, Birgit Högl
Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD), sleep paralysis, and nightmare disorder are the three REM sleep parasomnias outlined by the International Classification of Sleep Disorders. In this review we address the clinical neurophysiology of these disorders. The majority of neurophysiologic studies have been conducted in RBD, and fewer studies have evaluated patients with nightmare...
Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine
January 15, 2018
Franziska Di Pauli, Ambra Stefani, Evi Holzknecht et al.
Few studies have addressed dreaming in patients with sleep apnea. We hypothesized that respiratory events and subsequent oxygen desaturation act as an important physiological trigger and may thus influence dream content in patients with a sleep-related breathing disorder. Seventy-six patients (28 women, mean age 54 years, range 20-82) who underwent polysomnography because of suspected sleep...
Journal of Sleep Research
August 4, 2011
Katja Valli, Birgit Frauscher, Viola Gschliesser et al.
58 citations
Motor activity in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) has been linked to dream content. Systematic and controlled sleep laboratory studies directly assessing the relation between RBD behaviours and experienced dream content are, however, largely lacking. We aimed to investigate whether a link can be established between RBD behaviours and dream content when both are...