Stability of nocturnal wake and sleep stages defines central nervous system disorders of hypersomnolence

Abstract

Study Objectives: We determine if young people with narcolepsy type 1 (NT1), narcolepsy type 2 (NT2), and idiopathic hypersomnia (IH) have distinct nocturnal sleep stability phenotypes compared to subjectively sleepy controls. Methods: Participants were 5-to 21-year old and drug-naïve or drug free: NT1 (n = 46), NT2 (n = 12), IH (n = 18), and subjectively sleepy controls (n = 48). We compared the following sleep stability measures from polysomnogram recording between each hypersomnolence disorder to subjectively sleepy controls: Number of wake and sleep stage bouts, Kaplan-Meier survival curves for wake and sleep stages, and median bout durations. Results: Compared to the subjectively sleepy control group, NT1 participants had more bouts of wake and all sleep stages (p ≤. 005) except stage N3. NT1 participants had worse survival of nocturnal wake, stage N2, and rapid eye movement (REM) bouts (p