Clinical trial NCT03767426: The Effect of Sleep Deprivation and Recovery Sleep on Emotional Memory and Affective Reactivity
Official title: The Effect of Sleep Deprivation and Recovery Sleep on Emotional Memory and Affective Reactivity
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Sleep Deprivation
Sleep
Keywords: Emotion
Memory
Sleep
Sleep Deprivation
Lead sponsor: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Boston College
First posted: 2018-12-06
Enrollment: 100
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 35
Standard ages: ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: Independent group comparison
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: To further understand the impact of acute sleep deprivation and recovery sleep on the processing of emotional information the investigators will address and attempt to answer three questions, (i) how both undisturbed sleep and sleep deprivation affect the processing and retrieval of emotional information, (ii) what neural and psychophysiological mechanisms are associated with these behavioral effects, and (iii) to explore the ability of recovery sleep to reverse the effects of sleep deprivation. Together, these studies will provide a greater breadth and depth of knowledge concerning sleep's role in emotion processing and regulation. Given the growing societal tendency to view sleep as unproductive-foregoing it to lengthen work days and increase social opportunities- such knowledge would be of practical importance for understanding the role of sleep in healthy emotional functioning, particular for individuals experiencing periods of increased stress and emotional distress (e.g., new parents, hospital staff, or combat troops).

Detailed description: Goal 1: How does sleep deprivation impact emotion perception and memory processing? The investigators are interested in how an acute loss of sleep impairs our ability to properly perceive, consolidate, and retrieve emotional information. There has been research on the effect of sleep deprivation on broad areas of cognition, such as attention, working memory, and reasoning ability, but the impact of sleep loss on emotional processing and regulation remains largely unexplored. The investigators aim to characterize how sleep deprivation compared to undisturbed sleep affects the ability to accurately perceive emotion, how it alters the intensity with which emotions are perceived, and the effect that these changes have on the subsequent consolidation and memory retrieval for emotional compared to neutral information.

Goal 2: How are these changes reflected in the neural signal and with psychophysiological measures? The investigators will utilize functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and measures of autonomic reactivity (heart rate and skin conductance) to characterize the neural and psychophysiological mechanisms underlying these behavioral changes following sleep deprivation compared to a normal night of sleep. This will allow us to pinpoint the brain regions involved in changes following sleep deprivation, and associate these changes with effects on downstream physiological responses.

Goal 3: Can a nap after sleep deprivation restore normal processing of emotional memory and rescue the neural and autonomic markers of sleep deprivation? The investigators are interested in determining if a brief period of recovery sleep is enough to combat the behavioral, neural, and autonomic effects of acute sleep loss, thus a portion of the sleep-deprived participants will be given a 2-hour nap opportunity to quantify its restorative effects. Such information would form the foundation for future research extending and translating these findings into effective sleep-based interventions for healthy and clinical populations alike.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* willing and able to follow the protocol
* willing and able to meet inclusion criteria for fMRI scanning
* willing to refrain from alcohol and recreational drugs for the duration of the protocol
* normal or corrected to normal vision is required

Exclusion Criteria:

* self-reported sleep disturbances
* left-handedness or ambidexterity
* a history of mental illness or neurological disorder
* the use of any drugs that could affect either sleep or cognitive functioning (e.g., sleeping pills or antidepressants)

Primary outcomes:
measure: Morphed Face Accuracy and Intensity
timeFrame: 1-24 hours
measure: Emotional Memory Tradeoff Memory Score
timeFrame: 12-24 hours
measure: Psychomotor vigilance task lapse rate
timeFrame: 1-24 hours
Secondary outcomes:
measure: fMRI measured neural reactivity (blood oxygen-level dependent signal)
timeFrame: 12-24 hours
measure: Heart Rate Reactivity (Beats per minute)
timeFrame: 12-24 hours
measure: Skin Conductance Reactivity (micro Siemens)
timeFrame: 12-24 hours
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Boston
country: United States
facility: Tony Cunningham
state: Massachusetts
Study officials:
affiliation: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
name: Tony Cunningham, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: