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Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism Vol. 38, No. 4 646-651 doi:10.1210/jcem-38-4-646 Copyright © 1974 by the Endocrine Society. Relation of Sleep-Entrained Human Prolactin Release to REM-NonREM CyclesDONAL C. PARKER*, LAWRENCE G. ROSSMAN* and E. F. VANDERLAAN+
* Endocrine Unit, La Jolla V.A. Hospital and Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine La Jolla, California 92037 Address reprint requests to D. C. Parker, M.D., Room 6051, La Jolla V.A. Hospital, 3350 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla, California 92161. Human plasma prolactin (hPRL) concentrations were measured by radioimmunoassay in samples drawn at 20-min intervals from 14 normal male subjects during 58 nights of polygraphically monitored sleep. The hPRL-sleep histogram plots often showed a cyclic relation between recurrent REM periods and hPRL nadirs and between subsequent nonREM (Stage 2–4) segments and hPRL rises and peaks. The hPRL data were then tabulated as REM, nonREM or Wake values. To allow comparison between subjects and between sleep cycles of different lengths, sleep onset and the ends of REM periods were used as reference points within each sleep pattern. Backward from these reference points at 20-min intervals were tabulated pre-sleep Wake and REM values, respectively. Forward from these points, at 20-min intervals, were tabulated nonREM values. Thus, these tabular hPRL data now represented release patterns within sequential sleep onset and REM–nonREM cycles across sleep. Subject and group averages of these data clearly evidenced a temporal relation between REM–nonREM cycles in sleep and the respective progression in hPRL nadirs and peaks across sleep, in which cyclic hPRL nadirs in REM were significantly less than subsequent hPRL peaks in nonREM segments of these sequential sleep cycles. Entrainment of episodic hPRL release to sleep and more specifically to REM–nonREM cycles within sleep was indicated by these data. Hypothalamic dopaminergic correlates of Stage REM resulting in PIF release may explain these hPRL nadirs in part, though descent from nonREM peak prior to occurrence of the next REM period indicated this was not the sole explanation. A more complex sequential relationship in sleep perhaps finally involving serial PIF-PRF release is suggested.
This work was supported by USPHS Grant R01 AM 17334 and V.A. Research Fund 6911-01 including a Clinical Investigator Award to Donal C. Parker. A portion of this work was presented to the Association for the Psychophysiologic Study of Sleep, San Diego, May, 1973. Received August 20, 1973. This article has been cited by other articles:
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