Comparação entre sonhos e psicose: do processamento de memórias aos déficits cognitivos

Abstract

Recognition of the many similarities between dreams and psychotic attacks played a key role at the dawn of psychiatry. This interest faded after the discovery of the REM sleep and antipsychotics, which suggested that dreaming is a mere epiphenomenon of REM sleep, and that psychosis can be reduced to the action of neurotransmitters. Recent evidence, however, calls for a reexamination of this issue. We searched for articles in Pubmed using the keywords “schizophrenia”, “dream”, “electrophysiology”, “cognitive defi cit”, “sleep” and “memory”, and compared studies on the neurophysiological basis of psychosis and its relationship to cognitive defi cits, and the role of sleep in memory process. There are many similarities between dream and psychosis, including anatomical, neurochemical, electrophysiological and cognitive aspects. Altogether, the studies point to a common biological mechanism underlying both phenomena. The empirical evidence supports the notion that the neural mechanisms of dreaming are triggered during the course of psychosis, causing dream-like symptoms such as delirium and hallucination, which characterize psychotic attacks. The role of sleep in memory process may explain the cognitive defi cits of psychosis.