Thesis
French
ID: <
10670/1.zm7egb>
Abstract
Depressive disorders are definded by heterogeneous symptoms that include sleep disorders such as comorbid condition. Comorbidity of sleep disorders in depression is usually marked by a decrease in NREM sleep, increased REM sleep and sleep fragmentation, both in humans and within animal models of the disease. The first aim of this experimental work was to characterize sleep problems suspected in an animal model of adult mice rendered anxio/depressive by chronic administration of corticosterone. The results showed that chronic administration of corticosterone induced hypersomnia with increased NREM sleep, decreased REM sleep and led to fragmented sleep/wake states. The description of the sleep cycle of the CORT mouse model of anxiety/depression enriches the current classification by modeling atypical sleep disorders present in nearly 20% of the depressed subjects. The second aim was to correct these sleep disorders by chronic administration of classical (fluoxetine) and innovative (agomelatine) antidepressants. If each antidepressant molecules tested showed a beneficial effect towards drowsiness of CORT-treated mice, agomelatine has shown its superiority to prevent the inhibition of REM sleep induced by chronic corticosterone which was enhanced by chronic fluoxetine treatment.