[Experimental studies on the interaction between sleep and the immune system in humans]

Abstract

Sleepiness and increased sleep pressure are typical symptoms of inflammation and infection. Moreover, it is a pre-scientific belief that sleep supports host defense. The present paper summarizes the experimental evidence regarding the interaction between sleep and the immune system in humans. Sleep-wake behavior is very sensitive to experimental host defense activation, for example, by bacterial endotoxin. When the injection of endotoxin is accompanied by fever and a prominent neuroendocrine activation, sleep continuity will be disturbed. When the production of inflammatory cytokines is stimulated by smaller amounts of endotoxin, but no fever and no neuroendocrine activation are apparent, the nonREM-sleep amount will increase. This is possibly due to changes in the biological activity of the tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) system. Besides their important function in sleep regulation during acute immune response, cytokines also seem to be involved in physiological sleep regulation, although there still is not very much data on this issue. So far, it remains largely unknown whether or not sleep supports host defense. In humans, for example, acute sleep deprivation up to 55 hours has only minor effects on endotoxin-induced host responses. In contrast, there is preliminary and yet inconsistent evidence that sleep deprivation might impair antibody formation in response to viral challenges.