Psychology & Psychophysiology

Issue

• Sleep
• Sleep Disorders

Personal Data

Dieter Riemann, Univ. Prof. Dr. rer. Soc. Dipl. Psych.

Department

Clinic for Psychiatry & Psychosomatics, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Freiburg

• Internal Collaborations

Medical Faculty: Neurological Clinic, Interdisciplinary Pain Clinic, Freiburg

Brain Imaging Center, Dept. of Pneumology

University: Psychological Faculty – Depts. of  Clinical Psychology & Rehabilitational Psychology

FAVT – Freiburg Institute for Behavioral Therapy

• External Collaborations

Dept. of Psychiatry, Univ. of Rochester, NY, USA, Prof. M.L. Perlis

Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of Glasgow, Prof. C. Espie

Dept. of Psychiatry, Pittsburgh University, PA, USA, Prof. D. Buysse and C. Reynolds

Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Regensburg, Prof. G. Hajak

Know-How

The workgroup has longstanding and far-reaching expertise in the fields of sleep research and clinical sleep medicine. Topics of interests are sleep and depression, sleep in various neuropsychiatric conditions (borderline personality disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, alcohol dependence, etc.), drug effects on sleep and insomnia. Furthermore, the areas of sleep restriction/ deprivation and its effects on mood and cognitive performance have been a matter of high importance and research efforts. Most recently, work on sleep and learning mechanisms has been pursued in good sleepers and various groups of patients with sleep disorders. Furthermore, our group is actively engaged in a DFG funded Focus program on the central nervous effects of nicotine. At the end of this year, a study funded by NIH in collaboration with the University of Rochester, NY, will start studying the effectiveness of several treatments (pharmacotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy) in Primary Insomnia.

Experience

In the last fifteen years several research projects have been funded by DFG and BMBF. The sleep laboratory has been accredited successfully by the German Society for Sleep Research and Sleep Medicine already in 1992 and since then has participated in several quality assurance programs. Within the framework of a DFG grant (“Grossgeräteantrag”) the sleep laboratory was provided with state of the art equipment in 2003. Per annum, the sleep laboratory performs over 1000 polysomnographic studies in patients and healthy research volunteers. Besides our research activities, the laboratory provides diagnostic and therapeutic services in the field of neurological and psychiatric sleep medicine for approximately 300 patients per year.

Membership in Boards

Prof. Riemann:

1993 - 2006:             Head of the work group insomnia of the German Sleep Society (together with G. Hajak, Göttingen)

1998 - 2006:             Head of the commission „Scientific Coordination“ of the German Sleep Society

2000 - 2006:             Member of the board of the German Sleep Society

2001 - 2002:             Member of the Steering Committee for the guideline “Non restorative sleep” of the German Sleep Society

since 2004:               Member of the Scientific Committee of the European Sleep Research Society

2004 - 2005:             Member of the work group insomnia of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine for “The International Classification of Sleep Disorders - second edition”

since 2006:               Member of the Task Force DSM-V of the American Psychiatric Association (section on sleep disorders)

since 2006:               Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester, NY

Publications

For complete overview see: Dieter Riemann (Freiburg Research Database)

1. Riemann, D., Voderholzer, U., Spiegelhalder, K., Hornyak, M., Buysse, D.J., Nissen, C., Hennig, J., Perlis, M., Tebartz van Elst, L., Feige, B.: Chronic insomnia and MRI-measured hippocampal volumes: A pilot study. Sleep, 30, 955-958, 2007.

2. Voderholzer, U., Hohagen, F., Klein, T., Jungnickel, J., Kirschbaum, C., Berger, M., Riemann, D.: Impact of sleep deprivation and subsequent recovery sleep on cortisol in unmedicated depressed patients. American Journal of Psychiatry, 161, 1404-1410, 2004.

3. Lieb, K., Reincke, M., Riemann, D., Voderholzer, U.: Sleep deprivation and growth-hormone secretion. The Lancet, 356, 2096-2097, 2000.

4. Berger, M., Vollmann, J., Hohagen, F., König, A., Lohner, H., Voderholzer, U., Riemann, D.: Sleep deprivation combined with consecutive sleep-phase advance as a fast-acting therapy in depression: An open pilot trial in medicated and unmedi­cated patients. American Journal of Psychiatry, 154, 870-872, 1997.

5. Berger. M., Riemann, D., Höchli, D., Spiegel, R.: The cholinergic REM‑sleep‑induc­tion test with RS 86: State‑ or trait‑marker of depression? Archives of General Psychiatry, 46, 421‑428, 1989.

Projects