Increased heartbeat-evoked potential during REM sleep in nightmare disorder.
NeuroImage. Clinical January 1, 2019 Lampros Perogamvros, Hyeong-Dong Park, Laurence Bayer et al.
Patients with nightmare disorder show heightened heartbeat-evoked potentials (HEPs) during REM sleep compared to healthy controls, indicating increased emotional arousal and brain-body interaction specifically in REM sleep. No differences were found in cardiac control measures like heart rate variability. These findings suggest that nightmares are primarily a REM sleep pathology and that elevated emotional arousal during REM, as indexed by HEP, may underlie frequent nightmares. HEP could serve as a biomarker for increased emotional and sensory processing during REM sleep in these patients.