Correlation between sleep bruxism and headaches evaluated by polysomnography

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES  Sleep bruxism (SB) is an abnormal repetitive activity of masticatory muscles. It occurs during sleep for short or long periods, with or without dental contact. Several studies have deemed it as a possible causative and/or aggravating factor of primary headaches. This aims to investigate a potential correlation between SB and patients complaining of primary headaches whose previous diagnosis was polysomnography (PSG) with electrodes positioned in the masseter region.

METHODS  The sample consisted of observing 76 electronic records of patients (60 females and 16 males) diagnosed with some type of primary headache. The adopted criteria were those of the International Classification of Headache Disorders, 3^rd edition (ICHD-3 Beta). All patients underwent PSG with electrodes on the masseters to assess the presence of SB. Data was analyzed using Chi-square and Student t tests, with a confidence interval of 95%, adopting p<0.05 as level of significance. The JASP software, version 0.17.2.1, was used for analyses.

RESULTS  There were no statistically significant differences regarding the correlation between different types of primary headaches and the presence of sleep bruxism.

CONCLUSION  The results suggest that the presence of SB identified by polysomnography does not point to a significantly high incidence of primary headaches compared to individuals in whom the absence of bruxism was confirmed by the same method.

Keywords:
Headache; Polysomnography; Sleep bruxism

HIGHLIGHTS

No significant association was found between sleep bruxism diagnosed by polysomnography and primary headache types

Polysomnography with masseter electrodes was used as the gold standard to ensure accurate diagnosis of sleep bruxism

Findings suggest that sleep bruxism is not an isolated risk factor for primary headaches, reinforcing the need for further investigation