The Effect of Sleep Loss on Emotion Regulation

NCT ID: NCT05393830

Last Updated: 2024-08-22

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: RECRUITING
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 90 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2023-05-11
• Study Completion Date: 2027-07-31

Brief Summary

The study is designed to investigate the impact of three nights of sleep restricted to 4 hours per night, on the processing and regulation of emotional information compared to Insomnia Disorder and control. The investigators will address and attempt to answer two questions.

(i) How do three nights of reduced sleep or a diagnosis of Insomnia Disorder affect the processing and regulation of emotional information compared to typical, undisturbed sleep? (ii) What overlapping and distinct neural mechanisms are engaged and associated with behavioral effects when attempting to process and regulate emotions in a sleep restricted state or with a clinical diagnosis of Insomnia Disorder? This study will investigate sleep's role in emotion processing and regulation. The findings will help further understanding of the role of sleep in healthy emotional functioning.

Detailed Description

Goal 1: How does sleep loss and clinical sleep disruption (i.e. Insomnia Disorder) impact emotion perception and emotion regulation? The investigators are interested in how chronic loss of sleep, either through artificially restricting sleep or clinically related sleep disturbance, impairs our ability to properly perceive and regulate our responses to emotional information using various emotion regulation strategies. There has been research on the effect of sleep loss on broad areas of cognition, such as attention, working memory, and reasoning ability, but the impact of long-term sleep loss on emotional processing and regulation remains largely unexplored. The investigators aim to characterize how sleep loss via experimentally reduced sleep in healthy control participants or clinical sleep disturbance in patients with Insomnia Disorder, affects the ability to accurately perceive emotion. Investigators will also investigate how it alters the intensity with which emotions are perceived, and the effect that these changes have on the ability to regulate emotional responses to these stimuli compared to healthy control participants that are allowed undisturbed sleep.

Goal 2: How are changes in subjective emotional responses reflected in the neural signal and psychophysiological measures? The investigators will utilize fMRI and measures of autonomic reactivity (heart rate and skin conductance) to characterize the neural and psychophysiological responses that are associated with behavioral changes following sleep restriction or in patients with Insomnia disorder compared to healthy sleep control participants.

Conditions

Sleep; Insomnia; Sleep Deprivation

Study Design

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

Study Groups

Normal Sleep

Normal Sleep - Healthy participants are permitted normal nights of polysomnography or actigraphy recorded sleep before participating in an emotion regulation task during functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scanning

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Sleep Restriction

Healthy Participants are sleep restricted to 4 hours of sleep for 3 consecutive days before participating in an emotion regulation task during functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scanning

Group Type: ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Sleep Restriction

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Three nights of sleep restricted to 4 hours per night.

Patients with Insomnia Disorder

Patients with Insomnia Disorder will also be recruited and will be permitted normal nights of polysomnography or actigraphy recorded sleep before participating in an emotion regulation task during functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scanning

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

Sleep Restriction

Three nights of sleep restricted to 4 hours per night.

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

• left-handedness or ambidexterity
• the use of any drugs that could affect either sleep or cognitive functioning (e.g., prescription sleeping pills or antidepressants)

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 40 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Janet M Mullington, PhD

Professor of Neurology

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Janet M Mullington, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Locations

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Site Status: RECRUITING

Countries

United States

Central Contacts

Tony J Cunningham, PhD

Role: CONTACT

acunnin4@BIDMC.Harvard.edu

617-667-3337

Facility Contacts

Tony Cunningham, PhD

Role: primary

acunnin4@bidmc.harvard.edu

617-667-4702

Janet Mullington, PhD

Role: backup

jmulling@BIDMC.Harvard.edu

617-667-0434

Other Identifiers

2022P000120

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id