A primer on sleep neuroscience for psychiatry

Sleep problems are common in psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders, potentially emerging before other symptoms.The neuroscience of sleep offers a rich lens through which novel biomarkers and innovative treatments can be found.Researchers and clinicians alike will benefit from a deeper understanding of the role of sleep in psychiatric disorders.Sleep neurophysiology is typically studied with at-home or laboratory polysomnography: electroencephalography (EEG) with electrooculography (EOG), electromyography (EMG), and relevant peripheral signals such as respiration, airflow, oximetry, and electrocardiography (EKG).These clinical sleep studies are read for sleep disorders (e.g., sleep apnea) and gross sleep architecture (e.g., time in cycling sleep stages of non-rapid-eyemovement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.However, these studies rarely speak to the relevant specific biology of these states.