The high prevalence of sleep disturbance in neurodegenerative and psychiatric conditions is often interpreted as evidence for both sleep’s sensitivity to and causal involvement in brain pathology. Nevertheless, how and which aspects of sleep contribute to brain function remains largely unknown. This review provides a critical evaluation of clinical and animal literature describing sleep and circadian disturbances in two distinct conditions and animal models thereof: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and schizophrenia. Its goal is to identify commonalities and distinctiveness of specific aspects of sleep disturbance and their relationship to symptoms across conditions. Despite limited standardisation, data imply that reductions in sleep continuity and alterations in sleep timing are common to AD and schizophrenia, whereas reductions in REM sleep and sleep spindle activity appear more specific to AD and schizophrenia, respectively. Putative mechanisms underlying these alterations are discussed. A standardised neuroscience based quantification of sleep and disease-independent assessment of symptoms in patients and animal models holds promise for furthering the understanding of mechanistic links between sleep and brain function in health and disease.

在神经退行性疾病和精神疾病中，睡眠障碍的高患病率通常被解释为睡眠对脑部病理的敏感性和因果关系的证据。尽管如此，睡眠如何以及哪些方面对大脑功能有贡献，仍是未知之数。这篇综述提供了对临床和动物文献的重要评估，这些文献描述了在两种不同的疾病及其动物模型：阿尔茨海默氏病（AD）和精神分裂症中的睡眠和昼夜节律紊乱。它的目标是确定睡眠障碍特定方面的共性和独特性，以及它们与各种症状之间的关系。尽管标准化程度有限，但数据表明，AD和精神分裂症常见于减少睡眠连续性和改变睡眠时间。REM睡眠和睡眠纺锤体活动的减少似乎分别对AD和精神分裂症更具特异性。讨论了这些改变的潜在机制。基于标准化的神经科学的睡眠量化以及患者和动物模型中与疾病无关的症状评估，有望进一步增进人们对健康与疾病中睡眠与脑功能之间的机械联系的理解。