Author: Fiona C Baker

To investigate the influence of menstrual cycle phase and the presence of severe premenstrual symptoms on cardiac autonomic control during sleep, we performed heart rate variability (HRV) analysis.

Little is known about the impact of hot flashes on cardiac autonomic regulation, in particular vagal control. Thereby, we assessed the cardiac autonomic profile associated with physiological hot flashes occurring in undisturbed sleep.

We investigated whether women with primary dysmenorrhea are hyperalgesic to deep muscle pain induced by a cleanly nociceptive method of hypertonic saline injection.

There are sex differences in sleep behavior with women reporting more sleep problems and a poorer sleep quality than men across a wide age range.

There are sex-related differences in circadian rhythms with women having shorter intrinsic periods and earlier phase of both temperature and melatonin rhythms relative to men.

While changes in sleep across adolescence are a normal part of development, many adolescents are getting insufficient sleep and are consequently, less likely to perform well at school, more likely to develop mood-related disturbances, be obese, and are at greater risk for traffic accidents, alcohol and drug abuse.

The paper by Tarokh and colleagues in this issue of SLEEP highlights how longitudinal sleep EEG data is arguably the optimal functional measure of these structural brain changes.

This review paper summarizes presentations from a conference update on the state of knowledge about the extent to which reproductive status and age influence women’s sleep.

There are few studies of sleep in menstrual-related disorders. Preliminary evidence indicates subtle differences in sleep and circadian regulation in women with severe premenstrual syndrome, and increased subjective sleepiness in the premenstrual phase.