Maurizio Gorgoni

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• Ph.D.
• Researcher in tenure track (RTT) at Sapienza University of Rome

Introduction Research in the field of sleep, aging and dementia is rapidly growing. Consensus guidance is needed to facilitate high-quality research, comparability and consistency. Methods A modified Delphi consensus study was conducted by the Sleep and Circadian Rhythms Professional Interest Area of the International Society to Advance Alzheimer’...

Insomnia disorder (ID) is characterized by electroencephalographic indexes of hyperarousal, often associated with the underestimation of sleep duration (i.e., sleep state misperception). Albeit NREM sleep K-complexes (KCs) are involved in sleep protection and arousal, only a few studies investigated their alterations in ID with heterogenous finding...

The aim of the present study is to investigate differences in brain networks modulation during the pre- and post-sleep onset period, both within and between two groups of young and older individuals. Thirty-six healthy elderly and 40 young subjects participated. EEG signals were recorded during pre- and post-sleep onset periods and functional conne...

The current study aimed (1) to provide an analysis of the frequency and prevalence of sleep disturbances in a large Italian sample of children and adolescents with ASD, detecting specific predictors of the presence/absence of sleep disorders, (2) to examine the phenomenon of co-sleeping within a subgroup of participants with ASD. A total of 242 chi...

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic increased symptoms of stress and anxiety and induced changes in sleep quality, dream activity, and parasomnia episodes. It has been shown that stressful factors and/or bad sleep habits can affect parasomnia behaviors. However, investigations on how COVID-19 has affected sleep, dreams, and episode frequency in paras...

Since the beginning of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, a plethora of studies have been conducted to investigate the effects of this extraordinary phenomenon on sleep and mental health [...]

Human sleep physiology is strongly affected by age [...]

Background Delaying school start times has been proposed as a potential solution to address chronic sleep curtailment among adolescents and its negative consequences on their physical and mental well-being. This study investigates the impact of delayed school start times due to the COVID-19 pandemic on academic achievement. Subjects and Methods Tw...

"C'era una volta una corona magica" è; un progetto di fotografia narrativa sociale proposto durante l'emergenza sanitaria da Covid-19, prevalentemente rivolto alle famiglie con bambini che durante il lockdown non hanno avuto accesso alle attività abituali e ad aiuti esterni. Agli adulti veniva chiesto di costruire e fotografare insieme ai bambini u...

Several lines of evidence suggest that cluster headache is related to chronobiology and sleep. Nevertheless, the nature of such a relationship is unclear. In this view, the objective evaluation of sleep in cluster headache has strong theoretical and clinical relevance. Here, we provide an in‐depth narrative review of the literature on objective sle...

The present literature points to an alteration of the human K‐complex during non‐rapid eye movement sleep in Alzheimer's disease. Nevertheless, the few findings on the K‐complex changes in mild cognitive impairment and their possible predictive role on the Alzheimer's disease conversion show mixed findings, lack of replication, and a main interest...

Introduction Cluster headache (CH) is a trigeminal autonomic cephalalgia characterized by attacks of severe unilateral pain associated with ipsilateral autonomic symptoms. Cluster headache attacks exhibit nocturnal predilection, and sleep disorders could be the first manifestation of an incipient cluster period. Sleep alterations in cluster headach...

Purpose COVID-19 pandemic waves have strongly influenced individuals’ behaviors and mental health. Here, we analyzed longitudinal data collected in the Spring 2020 and 2021 from a large Italian sample with the aim of assessing changes in dream features between the first and third wave. Specifically, we evaluated the modifications of pandemic dream...

The imposition of lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic placed individuals under conditions of environmental stress, threatening individual and collective wellbeing. This study aimed to investigate the temporal effects of isolation and confinement during and after the Italian lockdown on decision-making, risk propensity, and cognitive control proc...

Sleep changes significantly throughout the human lifespan. Physiological modifications in sleep regulation, in common with many mammals (especially in the circadian rhythms), predispose adolescents to sleep loss until early adulthood. Adolescents are one-sixth of all human beings and are at high risk for mental diseases (particularly mood disorders...

In recent years, transcranial electrical stimulation techniques have demonstrated their ability to modulate our levels of sleepiness and vigilance. However, the outcomes differ among the specific aspects considered (physiological, behavioural or subjective). This study aimed to observe the effects of bifrontal anodal transcranial direct current sti...

COVID-19 has challenged the health workforce worldwide. In this cross-sectional study with a retrospective assessment, we explored the impact of the pandemic on mental health and sleep among a sample of Italian nurses and medical doctors. A total of 287 healthcare workers (212 nurses and 75 physicians) completed a web survey on socio-demographic, p...

After the appearance of a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) during 2019, the virus has spread with alarming speed and a pandemic quickly developed [...]

Since the first lockdown of Spring 2020, the COVID-19 contagion waves pervasively disrupted the sleep and mental health of the worldwide population. Notwithstanding the largest vaccination campaign in human history, the pandemic has continued to impact the everyday life of the general population for 2 years now. The present study provides the first...

Background: Sleep talking (ST) is characterized by the production of unaware verbal vocal activations (VBs) during sleep. ST seems potentially linked to linguistic and memory consolidation processes. However, sleep and dream characteristics and the relationship between verbal vocalizations (VBs) and cognitive functions are still unknown. Our study...

Recent investigations show that many people affected by SARS‐CoV2 (COVID‐19) report persistent symptoms 2–3 months from the onset of the infection. Here, we report the Italian findings from the second International COVID‐19 Sleep Study survey, aiming to investigate sleep and dream alterations in participants with post‐acute symptoms, and identify t...

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behaviour disorder is a REM sleep parasomnia characterised by the loss of the physiological muscle atonia during REM sleep, resulting in dream enactment behaviours that may cause injuries to patients or their bed partners. The nocturnal motor episodes seem to respond to the dream contents, which are often vivid and vi...

Sleep parasomnias have drawn the interest of sleep experts because they represent a valuable window to directly monitor dream activity and sleep mentation associated with nocturnal events. Indeed, parasomnias and their manifestations are helpful in investigating dream activity and features, overcoming methodological limits that affect dream study....

Evidence on the relation between binge-watching and sleep quality is still scarce and inconsistent and none has taken into account both the healthy and pathological dimensions of the phenomenon. This study aimed at filling this gap by investigating both aspects in healthy participants with high and low sleep quality. Further, we aimed at identifyin...

Isolated Rapid Eye Movement Sleep (REM) behaviour disorder (iRBD) is a prodromal sign of neurodegenerative disorders. Empirical findings point to a role of non-REM (NREM) sleep alterations in neurodegenerative processes. Therefore, the interest in NREM sleep electroencephalography (EEG) of iRBD is progressively increasing. The present review aims t...

Since the first lockdown of Spring 2020, the COVID-19 contagion waves pervasively disrupted the sleep and mental health of the worldwide population. Notwithstanding the largest vaccination campaign in human history, the pandemic has continued to impact the everyday life of the general population for two years now. The present study provides the fir...

Editorial

Eveningness is distinctively associated with sleep disturbances and depression symptoms due to the misalignment between biological and social clocks. The widespread imposition of remote working due to the COVID-19 pandemic allowed a more flexible sleep schedule. This scenario could promote sleep and mental health in evening-type subjects. We invest...

According to several influential models, dreams can be affected by state- and trait-like factors, sleep features, and diurnal experiences. The COVID-19 pandemic globally affected daily habits, emotional experiences, and sleep. Previous studies suggested an influence of collective traumatic events on dreaming. Starting from these premises, several s...

Several studies have tried to identify the neurobiological bases of dream experiences, nevertheless some questions are still at the centre of the debate. Here, we summarise the main open issues concerning the neuroscientific study of dreaming. After overcoming the rapid eye movement (REM) ‐ non‐REM (NREM) sleep dichotomy, investigations have focuss...

A growing body of evidence highlights that the COVID-19 pandemic affected oneiric activity. However, only a few studies have assessed the longitudinal changes in dream phenomenology during different phases of the pandemic, often focused on a limited number of dream variables. The aim of the present study was to provide an exhaustive assessment of d...

Aim of the present study is to investigate the alterations of brain networks derived from EEG analysis in pre- and post-sleep onset conditions after 40 h of sleep deprivation (SD) compared to sleep onset after normal sleep in 39 healthy subjects. Functional connectivity analysis was made on electroencelographic (EEG) cortical sources of current den...

Background and aims: Eveningness is distinctively associated with sleep disturbances and depression symptoms due to the misalignment between biological and social clock. The widespread imposition of remote working due to the COVID-19 pandemic allowed a more flexible sleep schedule. This scenario could promote sleep and mental health of evening-type...

Study Objectives Sleep talking (ST) has been rarely studied as an isolated phenomenon. Late investigations over the psycholinguistic features of vocal production in ST pointed to coherence with wake language formal features. Therefore, we investigated the EEG correlates of Verbal ST as the overt manifestation of sleep-related language processing, w...

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on sleep have been widely documented, but longitudinal evaluations during different phases of the “COVID-19 era” are needed to disentangle the specific consequences of the r145estrictive measures on sleep variables. The aim of this study was to assess the immediate effect of the lockdown’s end on sleep and sleep...

Insomnia (ID) is the most common sleep disorder; however pathogenetic mechanisms underlying ID symptoms are not fully understood. Adopting a multifactorial view and considering ID a condition that involves interregional neuronal coordination would be useful to understand the ID pathophysiology. Functional connectivity (FC) may help to shed light on...

Recent literature shows that the Coronovirus-19 (COVID-19) pandemic has provoked significant changes in dreaming. The current study intends to provide an update about dream variable changes during the second wave of COVID-19. A total of 611 participants completed a web survey from December 2020 to January 2021. Statistical comparisons showed that s...

Importance: The association of fast backward-rotating shift work (ie, anticlockwise sequence of afternoon, morning, and night shifts) with subjective and objective measures of sleep-wake quality, daytime attention, and tiredness of health care workers has not yet been established. Objective: To investigate the association of shift rotation directi...

A large body of evidence has documented the impact of the global COVID‐19 outbreak – and especially the lockdown period – on sleep quality and quantity. Here, we present the first Italian longitudinal study on sleep and COVID‐19 considering four different time points collected during lockdown (from 29 March 2020 to 3 May 2020) and a subsequent foll...

Objective The COVID-19 pandemic has strongly affected daily habits and psychological wellbeing, and many studies point to large modifications in several sleep and sleep-related domains. Nevertheless, pre-sleep arousal during the pandemic has been substantially overlooked. Since hyperarousal represents one of the main factors for the development and...

Healthy aging is characterized by macrostructural sleep changes and alterations of regional electroencephalographic (EEG) sleep features. However, the spatiotemporal EEG pattern of the wake-sleep transition has never been described in the elderly. The present study aimed to assess the topographical and temporal features of the EEG during the sleep...

Recent evidence showed that EEG activity alterations that occur during sleep are associated with structural, age-related, changes in healthy aging brains, and predict age-related decline in memory performance. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients show specific EEG alterations during sleep associated with cognitive decline, including reduced sleep spin...

Background: Several studies highlighted that sleepiness affects driving abilities. In particular, road traffic injuries due to excessive daytime sleepiness are about 10–20%. Considering that aging is related to substantial sleep changes and the number of older adults with driving license is increasing, the current review aims to summarize recent st...

The restrictions imposed by the Italian government because of the coronavirus outbreak have been shown to be demanding on the Italian population. Data were collected at four different time points from 29 March 2020 to 3 May 2020 and during the final follow-up survey on 12 October 2020. In the present study, we provided longitudinal evidence on the...

The Coronavirus 2019 pandemic strongly affected our sleep and dream activity. Many cross‐sectional studies highlighted increased dream recall frequency, and revealed a great presence of pandemic‐related oneiric contents. Here, we present the first prospective study carried out on an Italian sample. One‐hundred subjects were requested to fill out a...

Introduction Non-rapid eye movement (NREM) parasomnias are defined as abnormal nocturnal behaviors that typically arise from the NREM sleep stage 3 during the first sleep cycle. The polysomnographic studies showed an increase in sleep fragmentation and an atypical slow wave activity (SWA) in participants with NREM parasomnias compared to healthy co...

Some studies highlighted that patients with narcolepsy type-1 (NT1) experience high lucid dream frequency, and this phenomenon has been associated with a creative personality. Starting from the well-known “pandemic effect” on sleep and dreaming, we presented a picture of dream activity in pharmacologically treated NT1 patients during the Italian lo...

A growing body of evidence consistently describes the side‐effects of coronavirus disease 2019 lockdown on mental health and sleep quality. We conducted a longitudinal web‐based survey of 217 Italian participants at two time points: lockdown and subsequent follow‐up. To thoroughly investigate lockdown‐related changes in sleep quality, we first eval...

The multifactorial nature of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has led scientific researchers to focus on the modifiable and treatable risk factors of AD. Sleep fits into this context, given the bidirectional relationship with AD confirmed by several studies over the last years. Sleep disorders appear at an early stage of AD and continue throughout the enti...

AD patients undergo a slowing of waking EEG rhythms since prodromal stages, which could be ascribed to poor sleep quality. We examined the relationship between wake and sleep alterations by assessing EEG activity during (NREM/REM) sleep and (pre-sleep/post-sleep) wakefulness in AD, MCI and healthy controls. AD and MCI show high sleep latency and le...

Rotating shifts (mostly 8- or 12-h) are common among nurses to ensure continuity of care. This scheduling system encompasses several adverse health and performance consequences. One of the most injurious effects of night-time shift work is the deterioration of sleep patterns due to both circadian rhythm disruption and increased sleep homeostatic pr...

We have entered an era of a steep increase in the absolute and relative number of older people. This well-come phenomenon represents a major challenge for health care. However, maturational changes in sleep associated with aging do not easily appear as main factors, even though sleep alterations in the aging process lead to many detrimental consequ...

Dream research has advanced significantly over the last twenty years, thanks to the new applications of neuroimaging and electrophysiological techniques. Many findings pointed out that mental activity during sleep and wakefulness shared similar neural bases. On the other side, recent studies have highlighted that dream experience is promoted by sig...

Study objectives: The aim of the study was to describe the spontaneous electroencephalographic (EEG) features of sleep in the human calcarine cortex, comparing them with the well-established pattern of the parietal cortex. Methods: We analysed pre-surgical intracerebral EEG activity in calcarine and parietal cortices during NREM and REM sleep in...

Objective The lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic had a strong impact on daily habits, emotional experience, mental health and sleep. A large body of evidence suggests that dreams are affected by both waking experiences and sleep pattern. In this view, the lockdown should have induced intense modifications in dreaming activity. The aim of the study w...

Sleep has a crucial role in memory processes, and maturational changes in sleep electrophysiology are involved in cognitive development. Albeit both sleep and memory alterations have been observed in Developmental Dyslexia (DD), their relation in this population has been scarcely investigated, particularly concerning topographical aspects. The stud...

Objective Aim of the present study is to investigate the alterations of brain networks derived from EEG analysis in pre- and post-sleep onset conditions after 40 h of sleep deprivation (SD) compared to sleep onset after normal sleep in 39 healthy subjects. Methods Functional connectivity analysis was made on electroencelographic (EEG) cortical sou...

Quantitative analyses of electroencephalogram (EEG) during sleep have made it possible to establish “slow-wave activity” (SWA) as a biological marker of sleep depth and sleep homeostasis. Homeostasis is a basic principle of sleep regulation: it indicates that a sleep deficit induces a compensatory increase in sleep intensity, while excessive sleep...

Purpose In adolescence, physiological (circadian and homeostatic regulation of sleep) and social habits contribute to delayed sleep onset, while social obligations impose early sleep offset. The effects of delayed school start time on the subjective/objective measures of sleep–wake patterns and academic achievement have not been established. Metho...

Purpose In the current study, we aimed to investigate the EEG correlates of dream recall (DR) monitoring both the homeostatic and state-trait like factors. We assessed the influence of the time of night on the EEG correlates of DR from REM sleep. Specifically, we tested the continuity-hypothesis (on the theta EEG band) and the activation-hypothesis...

Several findings support the activation hypothesis, positing that cortical arousal promotes dream recall (DR). However, most studies have been carried out on young participants, while the electrophysiological (EEG) correlates of DR in older people are still mostly unknown. We aimed to test the activation hypothesis on 20 elders, focusing on the Non...

Background: Driving performance is strongly vulnerable to drowsiness and vigilance fluctuations. Excessive sleepiness may alter concentration, alertness, and reaction times. As people age, sleep undergoes some changes, becoming fragmented and less deep. However, the effects of these modifications on daily life have not been sufficiently investigate...

The sleep onset (SO) process is characterized by gradual electroencephalographic (EEG) changes. The interest for the possibility to manipulate the electrophysiological pattern of the wake-sleep transition is recently growing. This review aims to describe the EEG modifications of the SO process in healthy humans and the evidence about their experime...

Purpose Recent studies demonstrate that 5-Hz bilateral transcranial alternating current stimulation (θ-tACS) on fronto-temporal areas affects resting EEG enhancing cortical synchronization, but it does not affect subjective sleepiness. This dissociation raises questions on the resemblance of this effect to the physiological falling asleep process....

Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) are often characterised by sleep problems, and recent evidence indicates alterations of the sleep electroencephalographic (EEG) oscillations in these patients. Sleep microstructure plays a crucial role in cognitive functioning and brain maturation. In this view, modifications in sleep EEG oscillations in NDDs cou...

Starting from the consolidated relationship between sleep and cognition, we reviewed the available literature on the association between Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and sleep. This review analyzes the macrostructural and microstructural sleep features, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analy...

Sleep significantly changes across the lifespan, and several studies underline its crucial role in cognitive functioning. Similarly, mental activity during sleep tends to covary with age. This review aims to analyze the characteristics of dreaming and disturbing dreams at different age brackets. On the one hand, dreams may be considered an expressi...

Several findings underlined that the electrophysiological (EEG) background of the last segment of sleep before awakenings may predict the presence/absence of dream recall (DR) in young subjects. However, little is known about the EEG correlates of DR in elderly people. Only an investigation found differences between recall and non-recall conditions...

Sleep has a crucial role in brain functioning and cognition, and several sleep electroencephalography (EEG) hallmarks are associated with intellectual abilities, neural plasticity, and learning processes. Starting from this evidence, a growing interest has been raised regarding the involvement of the sleep EEG in brain maturation and cognitive func...

The existence of two different types of sleep spindles (slow and fast) is well-established, according to their topographical distribution at scalp- and cortical-level. Our aim was to provide a systematic investigation focused on the temporal evolution of sleep spindle sources during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. Spindle activity was recorded...

During the sleep onset (SO) process, the human electroencephalogram (EEG) is characterized by an orchestrated pattern of spatiotemporal changes. Sleep deprivation (SD) strongly affects both wake and sleep EEG, but a description of the topographical EEG power spectra and oscillatory activity during the wake-sleep transition after a period of prolong...

Dream experience (DE) represents a fascinating condition linked to emotional processes and the human inner world. Although the overlap between REM sleep and dreaming has been overcome, several studies point out that emotional and perceptually vivid contents are more frequent when reported upon awakenings from this sleep stage. Actually, it is well-...

Sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) has a trait-like nature. Several findings highlighted the heritability of spectral power in specific frequency ranges and sleep spindles during NREM sleep. However, a genetic influence on the K-complex (KC), one of the electrophysiological hallmarks of NREM sleep, has never been assessed. Here, we investigated the h...

Sleep onset is characterized by specific and orchestrated patterns of frequency and topographical EEG changes. Power analyses and computational assessments of network dynamics have described an earlier synchronization of the centrofrontal areas rhythms and a spread of synchronizing signals from associative prefrontal to posterior areas. We assess h...

Abstract Narcolepsy is a chronic sleep disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, hypnagogic hallucinations, and sleep paralysis. This disease affects significantly the overall patient functioning, interfering with social, work, and affective life. Some symptoms of narcolepsy depend on emotional stimuli; for instance, catapl...

Introduction: Sleep is a complex physiological process, linked with the function of every bodily organ, and its dysregulation has negative impacts for well-being and health. Despite its importance, after decades of research, much uncertainty remains with respect to brain functional changes occurring when we fall asleep. The known point is that ther...

PREVALENCE OF SLEEP TALKING IN AN ITALIAN SAMPLE, ASSOCIATION WITH OTHER ALTERED NOCTURNAL BEHAVIOURS AND QUALITY OF SLEEP: PRELIMINARY FINDINGS Mangiaruga, S. Scarpelli, A. D'Atri, V. Alfonsi, C. Bartolacci, F. Reda, C. Schiappa, M. Gorgoni, L. De Gennaro. Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy Introduction: Sleep talking (ST) was...

K-COMPLEXES AND SLOW WAVE ACTIVITY DURING NREM SLEEP IN PATIENTS WITH ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE M. Gorgoni 1, F. Reda1, G. Lauri 1, I. Truglia 1, S. Cordone 1, S. Scarpelli 1, A. Mangiaruga 1, A. D'Atri 1, C. Bartolacci 1, V. Alfonsi 1, C. Schiappa 1, M. Ferrara 2, P.M. Rossini 3,4, L. De Gennaro 1 Introduction: An association between decreased frontal...

AGING AND DREAMING: EEG OSCILLATIONS PREDICT DREAM RECALL S. Scarpelli 1, A. D'Atri 1, M. Gorgoni 1, A. Mangiaruga 1, G. Lauri 1, I. Truglia 1, C. Bartolacci 1, M. Ferrara 2, L. De Gennaro 1. 1 Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; 2 Department of Biotechnological and Applied Clinical Sciences, University of l'Aquila,...

Rhythmic non-invasive brain stimulations are promising tools to modulate brain activity by entraining neural oscillations in specific cortical networks. The aim of the study was to assess the possibility to influence the neural circuits of the wake-sleep transition in awake subjects via a bilateral transcranial alternating current stimulation at 5...

COVER ILLUSTRATION: Brain connectivity in pre and post sleep onset conditions at sigma band.

The common knowledge of a uniqueness of REM sleep as a privileged scenario of dreaming still persists, although consolidated empirical evidence shows that the assumption that dreaming is just an epiphenomenon of REM sleep is no longer tenable. However, the brain mechanisms underlying dream generation and its encoding in memory during NREM sleep are...

Sleep onset is characterized by a specific and orchestrated pattern of frequency and topographical EEG changes. Conventional power analyses of electroencephalographic (EEG) and computational assessments of network dynamics have described an earlier synchronization of the centrofrontal areas rhythms and a spread of synchronizing signals from associa...

The K-complex (KC) is one of the hallmarks of Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) sleep. Recent observations point to a drastic decrease of spontaneous KCs in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, no study has investigated when, in the development of AD, this phenomenon starts. The assessment of KC density in mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a clinical cond...