Predicting Cognitive Resilience Against Sleep Loss

Mass General Brigham

Status

Completed

Conditions

Sleep Deprivation

Treatments

Behavioral: Sleep deprivation

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT01651429

D12AP00241

Details and patient eligibility

About

Resilience is the ability to cope effectively and adapt to a wide range of stressful environmental challenges. Sleep loss has been shown to reduce activity in the brain regions responsible for resilience. The ability to resist the effects of sleep loss appears to be a stable, trait-like quality. This study will attempt to predict individuals' trait-resistance to sleep loss based on their neurobiology.

Full description

Resilience, the ability to cope effectively and adapt to a wide range of stressful environmental challenges, appears to be mediated extensively by the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). Sleep deprivation has been shown to reduce metabolic activity throughout the brain, particularly the MPFC. The ability to resist the effects of sleep loss appears to be a stable, trait-like phenomenon that is consistent across situations, suggesting that it may reflect an enduring quality of the underlying neurobiological system. The present study aims to identify the neural basis of resilience and effectively discriminate resistant from vulnerable individuals during an overnight sleep deprivation session. Specifically, the primary aims of this research are 1) to further our understanding of the role of the MPFC in resilience and 2) to develop a statistical prediction algorithm based on multimodal neuroimaging that will reliably discriminate between individuals who are resilient versus vulnerable to the cognitive impairing effects of sleep loss.

Enrollment

48 patients

Sex

All

Ages

20 to 45 years old

Volunteers

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Age 20-45 years
Right handedness as assessed by the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory
For women: regular menstrual cycles (duration between 25 and 35 days with no more than 3 day variation between cycle)

Exclusion criteria

History of head injury with loss of consciousness or post-traumatic amnesia, or major neurological illness
Medical or neurologic condition that would confound interpretation of results, including alcohol or drug abuse/dependence in the past 6 months, neurological disorders including any history of seizures
History of cardiac problems
History of major depressive disorder or anxiety disorder
Lifetime history of psychotic disorder, including bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or obsessive compulsive disorder
Other DSM-IV diagnosis that could affect interpretation of results
Mixed or left handedness
Abnormal visual acuity that cannot be corrected by contact lenses
Daily caffeine use exceeding 400 mg per day
History of smoking or tobacco use in the past year
Metal within the body, pregnancy, or other contraindication for MRI procedures
Use of drugs or medications that could affect functional neuroimaging results (e.g., fluoxetine, beta-blockers)
Psychotropic medication use within the past 6 weeks