Neuroimaging of sleep and sleep disorders. A book Review.

Neuroimaging of sleep and sleep disorders Edited by Eric Nofzinger, Pierre Maquet and Michael J Thorpy Cambridge medicine, Cambridge University Press 2013 Sleep physiology is a field of increasing importance because the recent awareness of how sleep affects us all, whether it is good or bad. Sleep disorders have a big impact on daily life and functioning, but importantly, also other disorders that are not primarily associated with sleep disturbances. Subsequently several disorders should be investigated and treated for sleep symptoms because these can be frequent. Examples here are Parkinson′s disease with frequent day time sleepiness and insomnia. Also, epilepsy is frequently connected to disturbed night sleep in a complex way: antiepileptic drugs can be sedative, but seizures can also occur at night and disturb the night sleep. A focus on increased sleep health for persons with epilepsy can improve seizure control, and should be included in future follow up of such patients. Of course, the impact of sleep deprivation on driving is a well-known problem that often concerns doctors, for example in common diseases like obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome,OSAS, as well as other chronic conditions, also regarding medications, with an impact on alertness. Naturally sleep effects in healthy persons are of great importance in the society, concerning both safety and quality of life.. Besides medicine, also new fields have emerged that do not primarily link to pathological conditions. The effects of sleep deprivation on economic decision making is such an example of research that reveals how sleep can affect human behaviour. Neuroimaging of Sleep and Sleep Disorders is an outstanding book with high relevance to physicians and researchers interested in this area. It has a background part with introductory sections about Neuroimaging of wakefulness and sleep, Neuroimaging, sleep loss and circadian misalignment and Sleep and memory containing the important imaging modalities such as magnetic resonance imaging ( MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), sonography, magnetization transfer imaging (MTI) and combined EEG and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The core chapter thoroughly invents imaging experiences in a large variety of disorders and conditions connected to sleep disturbance: insomnia, depression, schizophrenia, narcolepsy (also including cataplexy as an isolated phenomenon), OSAS, parasomnia, central hypoventilation syndrome, fatal familial insomnia, posttraumatic stress disorder,