Thalamic Currents Underlie Sleep Problems in Fibromyalgia Save

Sleep disruption is a core feature of fibromyalgia. People with fibromyalgia exhibit sleep brain wave patterns often disrupted by brain waves that correspond to wakefulness. 

Researchers at Boston University and the Brigham and Women's Hospital constructed a computational model that recreated the sleep patterns observed in patients with fibromyalgia to understand how the abnormal patterns arose. The research team focused on the molecular targets of sodium oxybate, a drug reported to improve sleep in patients with fibromyalgia. Specifically, they found that altering the activity of three targets -- GABAB currents, the potassium leak currents and hyperpolarization-activated thalamic currents -- restored sleep patterns in their model. Surprisingly, altering just the potassium leak currents or the hyperpolarization-activated thalamic currents could also restore normal deep sleep wave patterns. (Citation source http://buff.ly/1frvnPl)

The authors postulate that delta sleep might be restored by drugs that preferentially target these currents in the thalamus; such drugs might have fewer side effects.