The Effect of Sleep Deprivation and Recovery Sleep on Emotional Memory and Affective Reactivity

NCT ID: NCT03767426

Last Updated: 2024-08-06

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: RECRUITING
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 100 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2019-03-01
• Study Completion Date: 2025-12-31

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.

Conditions

Sleep Deprivation; Sleep

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

Overnight sleep

Subjects are permitted a night of polysomnograph-recorded sleep before participating in training and testing sessions the next day

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Sleep deprivation

Subjects sleep deprived before participating in training and testing sessions the next day

Group Type: ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Sleep Deprivation

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Subjects are sleep deprived for an entire night

Daytime Nap

Subjects are trained and then retested after a daytime nap

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Sleep Deprivation

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Subjects are sleep deprived for an entire night

Daytime nap

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

After a night of sleep deprivation, participants will be given a 2 hour nap opportunity

Interventions

Sleep Deprivation

Subjects are sleep deprived for an entire night

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Daytime nap

After a night of sleep deprivation, participants will be given a 2 hour nap opportunity

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• willing and able to follow the protocol
• 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)

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 35 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Boston College

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Robert Stickgold

Professor of Psychiatry

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Tony Cunningham, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Locations

Tony Cunningham

Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Site Status: RECRUITING

Countries

United States

Central Contacts

Tony J Cunningham, PhD

Role: CONTACT

acunnin4@bidmc.harvard.edu

617-632-7927

Robert Stickgold, PhD

Role: CONTACT

rstickgold@hms.harvard.edu

617-233-3768

Facility Contacts

Tony Cunningham, PhD

Role: primary

acunnin4@bidmc.harvard.edu

617-632-7927

Robert Stickgold, PhD

Role: backup

rstickgold@hms.harvard.edu

617-233-3768

Other Identifiers

TC-1

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id