Sleep disorders and their influence on the development of cerebrovascular diseases

Abstract

Rare, adequately designed clinical studies confirm clinical observations of the association of circadian rhythm and increased frequency of cardiovascular events, especially sudden death, with the highest risk in the early morning hours1-3. This connection is also present for the increased frequency of cerebrovascular events in this period, but there is a diversity of occurrence of certain forms of these diseases in relation to the circadian rhythm. Thus, the results of the research dedicated to this problem suggest that the period between 6 and 12 h AM represents the time with the highest frequency of episodes of ischemic brain disease, especially transient ischemic attacks, while for the syndrome of intracranial hemorrhage (subarachnoid and intracerebral non-traumatic hemorrhage) there is a relatively equal representation compared to a 24-hour period. In an attempt to explain the etiopathogenesis of this sequence of events, various agents and factors are mentioned, as well as physiological processes that normally follow the circadian rhythm. In this paper, attention will be focused on sleep disorders as possible etiopathogenetic factor in development of cerebrovascular diseases, and other important factors and processes that may have certain importance and be related to sleep disorders.