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14 septembre 2008
J Sleep Res
2008;17:303-308
Yawning and subjective sleepiness in the elderly
Zilli I, Giganti F, Uga V.
Sleep Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Florence, Italy
 
Walusinski O Le bâillement: naissance, vie et sénescence

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-Abe K et al. Occurrences of Yawn and Swallow are Temporally Related. Dysphagia 2014
-Giganti F, Hayes MJ, Akilesh MR, Salzarulo P. Yawning and behavioral states in premature infants. Dev Psychobiol. 2002;41(3):289-96.
-Giganti F, Hayes MJ Cioni G, Salzarulo P Yawning frequency and distribution in preterm and near term infants assessed throughout 24-h recordings Infant Behav & Development 2007;30(4):641-647
-Giganti F, Ziello ME Contagious and spontaneous yawning in autistic and typically developing children CPL 2009
-Giganti F, Zilli I. The daily time course of contagious and spontaneous yawning among humans. J Ethol 2011;29(2):215-216
-Giganti F, Zilli I, Aboudan S, Salzarulo P. Sleep, sleepiness and yawning. Front Neurol Neurosci. 2010;28:42-6.
-Giganti F, Salzarulo P. Yawning throughout life. Front Neurol Neurosci. 2010;28:26-31
-Giganti F, Toselli M, Ramat S. Developmental trends in a social behaviour: contagious yawning in the elderly. Giornale di Psicologia dello Sviluppo. 2012;101:111-117
-Giganti F, Guidi S, Ramat S, Zilli I, Raglione LM, Sorbi S, Salzarulo P. Yawning: A behavioural marker of sleepiness in de novo PD patients. Parkinsonism Relat Disord 2013
-Zilli I, Giganti F, Salzarulo P. Yawning in morning and evening types. Physiol Behav 2007;91(2-3):218-222
-Zilli I, Giganti F, Uga V. Yawning and subjective sleepiness in the ederly. J Sleep Res 2008;17:3003-308
Yawning is related to sleep/wake transitions and time of day, probably reflecting the time course of sleepiness. As aging modifies sleep-wake and sleepiness rhythms, we suppose that yawning frequency and its time course vary as a function of age.
 
Thirteen aged healthy subjects (77.15 +/- 4.09 years) and 12 young adults (24.41 +/- 3.31 years) were instructed to keep their habitual sleep schedules for three consecutive work-days, during which they were required to signal every yawning occurrence and to evaluate hourly their sleepiness level.
 
Results showed that aged subjects yawn less frequently than young adults, particularly during morning and mid-afternoon hours. The time course of yawning was different between the two age groups: aged subjects showed earlier morning peak and evening rise compared with young adults; in addition, aged subjects showed two minor peaks in-between. Differences as a function of age in the time course of yawning were associated with differences in the time course of sleepiness. The only exception pertained to the early morning yawning peak, which was close to the awakening but it was not associated with high sleepiness in aged subjects.
 
Our study discloses that aging modifies yawning frequency and its time course. Furthermore, as in the elderly yawning after the awakening is not associated with high sleepiness level as in young adult, we put forward that sleepiness level and the proximity of sleep/wake transitions could separately affect yawning.
 
Discussion
Overall yawning frequency is reduced in aged subjects compared with their younger counterparts, supporting the previous report by Walusinski (2006).....
 
It is noteworthy that the reduction of yawning frequency in aged subjects is not spread throughout wakefulness: aged subjects yawn less frequently than young adults during the morning and in the mid-afternoon. This result could be explained by the age-related shift towards morningness, previously highlighted (for review, Monk and Kupfer, 2007) and replicated in the present study. In fact, a recent research (Zilli et al., 2007) emphasized that morning-types yawn less frequently than evening-types particularly during daytime....
 
Although both elderly and young subjects yawn more frequently early in the morning and late in the evening, aged subjects show earlier morning peak and evening rise compared with the young adults, according to the earlier sleep times. In addition, aged subjects exhibit two minor yawning peaks, which occur early in the afternoon and early in the evening.
 
Several factors such as boredom (Provine and Hamernik, 1986) and the view of yawning individuals (Provine, 1986, 1989) also modify yawning frequency. Thus, it could be argued that differences with age in daily-life could interfere with yawning production. However, we recruited old subjects amongst healthy and independent persons who live on their own and participate to social activities in order to make as slight as possible the disparity between young and elderly individuals. Hence, it is tenable that age per se could reliably account for differences in yawning frequency and its time course.
 
Our results show that the time course of sleepiness varies as a function of age in agreement with previous findings (Carrier et al., 1997; Monk et al., 1996; Munch et al., 2005). Moreover, the time course of sleepiness across wakefulness is related to the time course of yawning in both age groups. This finding is consistent with the association between yawning and sleepiness emphasized by previous researches (Guggisberg et al., 2007; Provine et al., 1987; Zilli et al., 2007) and it underscores that this link is evident even in the elderly.
 
As we hypothesized, changes as a function of age in the time course of yawning are associated with changes in the time course of sleepiness. The lower sleepiness levels reported by the aged subjects during morning hours could account for the reduction of yawning frequency observed in this part of the day. It is also noticeable that the two additional yawning peaks, detected in the midst of wakefulness period in the elderly, approximately correspond to sleepiness rises. Furthermore, the advanced evening rise in yawning frequency showed by aged subjects matched up with the advanced sleepiness increase.
 
Concerning the relationship between yawning and sleep episode, both aged and young subjects show an increase of yawning frequency before sleep and a decrease after the awakening, with yawns peaking in the hour preceding sleep onset and in the hour following sleep termination.
 
However, aged subjects yawn less frequently than young adults from the second hour following the awakening. In other words, young adults progressively reduce yawning frequency after the end of sleep, whereas aged subjects show a steeper reduction and yawns become virtually absent shortly after the awakening. Given the link between yawning and stretching after the awakening previously evidenced in the young adult (Provine et al., 1987), it would have been interesting to verify this association in the elderly; unfortunately, our procedure missed to collect information about stretching.
 
It is remarkable that the rise of yawning before sleep parallels the increase of sleepiness in both age groups, whereas yawning peak after the awakening is not associated with high sleepiness level in the aged subjects. This discrepancy suggests that the time course of subjective sleepiness by itself could not give an explanation for all of the yawning frequency oscillations: the relationship between yawning frequency and the proximity of wake&endash;sleep and sleep&endash;wake transitions should also be taken into account. It seems reasonable to suppose that sleepiness level and sleep episode proximity could separately affect yawning, even though further researches including sleep&endash; wake rhythm manipulation and sleepiness objective measurement are necessary to clarify their respective role.
 
 
-Giganti F, Hayes MJ, Akilesh MR, Salzarulo P. Yawning and behavioral states in premature infants Developmental Psychobiology 2002; 41; 3; 289-96
-Giganti F, Hayes MJ Cioni G, Salzarulo P Yawning frequency and distribution in preterm and near term infants assessed throughout 24-h recordings Infant Behav & Development 2007;30(4):641-647
-Guggisberg AG, Mathis J, Herrmann US, Hess CW.The functional relationship between yawning and vigilance. Behav Brain Res 2007;179(1):159-166
-Zilli I, Giganti F, Salzarulo P. Yawning in morning and evening types. Physiol Behav 2007;91(2-3):218-222
-Zilli I, Giganti F, Uga V. Yawning and subjective sleepiness in the ederly. J Sleep Res 2008;17;3003-308
 
salzarulo
 Gianluca Ficca & Piero Salzarulo "Lo Sbadiglio Dello Struzzo" , Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2002