Sleepless nights and disrupted body clocks could be linked to mental health conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, according to research by Professor Russell Foster from the University of Oxford.
Mental Health Awareness Week (13-19 May 2013) is important in highlighting research in the field of mental illness, and challenging stigmas.
People with schizophrenia often complain about sleeping difficulties. It has long been thought that their poor sleep patterns stem from unemployment and the resulting tendency to wake up later than the norm, or else are side effects of anti-psychotic drugs. But Professor Foster and his team have found that it’s not down to medication or lifestyle, but in fact due to fundamentals of their physiology.
Foster said: “The appalling sleep-wake in schizophrenia is independent of medication and social constraints. There is something fundamentally wrong with the body clock of patients with schizophrenia.”
Foster’s work suggests that the neural mechanisms of the brain behind mental health and normal sleep overlap and share brain circuits, so if your sleep is disrupted, so is your mental health. Studies of schizophrenia patients have found profound disruptions in their sleep patterns, with half also having irregular body clocks that are out of sync with the pattern of night and day.
Foster’s team also identified a genetic mutation that triggers schizophrenia-like symptoms in mice, which also appears to disrupt their circadian rhythm or body clock.
He said: “We looked at a gene linked with schizophrenia in humans. When mutated, it completely smashes the mouse sleep-wake cycle, just like the patients we observe with schizophrenia. Here we have direct evidence of a genuine mechanistic overlap between the neural circuits that give rise to normal mental health and the neural circuits that give rise to normal sleep.”
The findings offer the potential to identify sleep disruptions early on and predict the arrival of mental illness. Sleep disruption may even be causing the onset of conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Foster said: “We’ve been looking at young people at high risk of developing bipolar. They are already showing an abnormal sleep-wake pattern before any clinical diagnosis.
“Part of the reason patients with mental illness are so socially isolated is because they sleep during the day and are awake at night. If we can correct that, it may help social integration, and if we can correct some of the sleep-wake problems we may have a genuine and lasting effect on the patient’s mental health.”
Russell Foster will be delivering The Physiological Society’s Annual Public Lecture on body clocks at the IUPS Congress in Birmingham in July 2013.
Eva Cyhlarova, Head of Research at The Mental Health Foundation, says:
“Poor sleep can lead to mental health problems, and mental health problems can lead to poor sleep. People with severe and enduring mental health problems (such as schizophrenia) often experience insomnia and can find themselves in a downward spiral of sleeplessness and ill-health, from which some never fully recover.
“It is therefore crucial that professionals are aware of this issue and help people deal with the sleep problems, as well as managing their mental health.”
ENDS
Notes for Editors
<!–[if !supportLists]–>1. <!–[endif]–>New audio interview with Russell Foster on circadian rhythms and mental illness
Recorded in April 2013 and available to use – please contact Lucy Holmes (details below).
www.physoc.org/media/russellfoster
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCV-RyU61UU
<!–[if !supportLists]–>2. <!–[endif]–>Public lecture of The Physiological Society (free), ICC, Birmingham
Monday 22 July 2013, 19:30 – 20:30
The Rhythms of Life – What your body clock means to you
Russell Foster, University of Oxford
www.iups2013.org (public events)
<!–[if !supportLists]–>3. <!–[endif]–>Published research
Sleep and circadian rhythm disruption in psychiatric and neurodegenerative disease. Katharina Wulff, Silvia Gatti, Joseph Wettstein & Russell Foster. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 11, 589-599 (August 2010). www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v11/n8/abs/nrn2868.html
<!–[if !supportLists]–>4. <!–[endif]–>Congress of the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS), July, Birmingham
IUPS 2013 is the 37th Congress of the International Union of Physiological Sciences and takes place at the ICC, Birmingham from 21 – 26 July. The congress will bring together over 4,000 physiologists from all corners of the globe to attend over 100 symposia and 30 keynote lectures. The congress has been running since 1889 and was started in an effort to promote physiology, encourage the interchange of ideas, and afford physiologists the opportunity to know one another personally. www.iups2013.org
<!–[if !supportLists]–>5. <!–[endif]–>The Mental Health Foundation
The Mental Health Foundation is a UK-wide charity that carries out research, campaigns for better mental health services, and works to raise awareness of all mental health issues to help us all lead mentally healthier lives. www.mentalhealth.org.uk
Contacts
Russell Foster, Professor of Circadian Neuroscience and Head of Department of Ophthalmology, University of Oxford
russell.foster@eye.ox.ac.uk; +44(0)1865 287831
Lucy Holmes, Media and Communications Officer, The Physiological Society
LHolmes@physoc.org, +44 (0)20 7269 5727