Waking-hour cerebral activations in nightmare disorder: A resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study.
Chanchan Shen, Jiawei Wang, Guorong Ma, Qisha Zhu, Hongjian He, Qiuping Ding, Hongying Fan, Yanxia Lu, Wei Wang
Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences December 1, 2016 DOI: 10.1111/pcn.12455 (opens in new tab) via PubMed
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractPeople with nightmare disorder show altered resting-state brain activity compared to healthy volunteers. Fifteen nightmare disorder patients and 15 healthy controls completed questionnaires and resting-state fMRI scans. Patients scored higher on measures of physical effect and horrible stimulation from nightmares. They had higher regional homogeneity (a measure of local brain connectivity) in the left anterior cingulate cortex and right inferior parietal lobule, and lower regional homogeneity in the left superior and inferior frontal gyri and bilateral middle occipital gyri.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Case-control study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 30 |
| Population | Nightmare disorder patients and healthy volunteers |
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Keywords | Anterior cingulate cortex Emotion Hypervigilance Parietal lobule |
| Key finding | Nightmare disorder patients had higher regional homogeneity in the left anterior cingulate cortex and right inferior parietal lobule, and lower regional homogeneity in left frontal and bilateral occipital regions, with correlations between brain activity and nightmare-related physical effect. |
Abstract
The purpose of the current study was to explore the cerebral areas involved in nightmare disorder. Fifteen nightmare disorder patients and 15 healthy volunteers were invited to undergo resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and to complete the Nightmare Experience Questionnaire. The nightmare disorder patients scored higher on the Physical Effect and Horrible Stimulation scales, had higher values of regional homogeneity in clusters within the left anterior cingulate cortex and right inferior parietal lobule, and lower regional homogeneity values within the left superior and inferior frontal gyri and bilateral middle occipital gyri. Physical Effect was negatively correlated with regional homogeneity values in anterior cingulate cortex and inferior parietal lobule in the nightmare disorder group, and was positively correlated with regional homogeneity value in the inferior frontal gyrus in the healthy control group. To our best knowledge, this is the first neuroimaging study on nightmare disorder, and we have characterized the cerebral activities underlying altered hyperarousal and emotion regulation in nightmare disorder at resting-state.