Abstract
Sleep deprivation (SD) has deleterious effects on cognitive functions and mood state. Evidence has shown that total and rapid-eye movement (REM) SD may lead to mood disturbances, anxiety, and depressive-like behaviors in rodents. However, there are inconsistent reports showing the potential antidepressant effects of SD. The present systematic review study aimed to review all previously published studies (indexed in PubMed) to assess the effects of total and REM SD on depressive-like behavior in rats, with respect to rat model, rat strain, age or weight, sex, SD model, SD duration, SD method, and depression test. At first, 184 studies were identified. After removal of duplications and unrelated studies, 37 studies were included in the present systematic review. The results showed a wide range of inconsistent effects of total and REM SD (especially REM SD) on depressive-like behavior in control and model rats. Increased depressive-like behavior was the most effect seen induced by total and REM SD in control rats. However, REM SD in pathological conditions showed a therapeutic role via decreasing depression, but total SD did not show this effect. We also showed that sex and depression test may alter the effect of REM SD on depressive-like behavior (evidence is limited). We suggested that future studies should use various depression tests and both sexes to better investigate the effects of SD on depression. We also showed that chronic REM SD leads to manic-like behaviors in females, although this effect has not been well investigated in males.