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Editor: Robert Binstock
Profession: Paxil Side Effect Attorney

Category: Paxil News

People who act out their dreams while being asleep suffer from REM behavior disorder and it can be potentially dangerous.

It is a disorder that many researchers feel is on the rise as one of the oddest and rarest side effects from a broad use of antidepressant dugs.

"It's actually not that surprising, knowing what these medications do chemically in the brain," said psychiatrist R. Robert Auger of the class of antidepressants that includes Effexor, Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil and other serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

Auger, a sleep researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., presented findings on the link between antidepressants and REM behavior disorder last summer at a meeting of sleep researchers. But his work is also part of a broadening interest in a sleep disorder once thought to be an irksome curiosity.

For years, researchers have known about REM behavior disorders. It is a relatively rare. Approximately 0.5 of people have it. More than 90 percent of cases appear in men that are over 50. Possibly, because of the rise in antidepressant use, younger men and woman are beginning to suffer from REM disorder.

REM sleep is the time in the sleep cycle that people experience their most robust dreaming. During REM, unlike other periods of the sleep cycle, the brain paralyzes the skeletal muscles so the body doesn't move or run around during sleep. But this doesn't occur in REM behavior disorder.

Scientists are unsure of the precise mechanism, but they believe the use of antidepressants such as Paxil, are acting on neurochemicals in the brain stem that usually cause REM sleep paralysis or atonia. People that later develp Parkinson's may be getting early onset of REM behavior disorder because certain cells within the brain begin to deteriorate.

Fortunately, REM behavior disorder tends to be treated easily, typically with a prescription tranquilizer such as clonazepam. Those who suffer REM behavior disorder because of antidepressants can often be switched to another antidepressant such as Wellbutrin, which does not appear to trigger the disorder.