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

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).

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Sleep; Sleep Deprivation
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Sleep Deprivation; Behavioral: Daytime nap

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.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Anticipated): 100
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Tony J Cunningham, PhD; Phone Number: 617-632-7927; Email: acunnin4@bidmc.harvard.edu
• Study Contact Backup: Name: Robert Stickgold, PhD; Phone Number: 617-233-3768; Email: rstickgold@hms.harvard.edu

Study Locations

• United States
  • Massachusetts
    • Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02215
      • Recruiting
      • Tony Cunningham
      • Contact: Robert Stickgold, PhD; Phone Number: 617-233-3768; Email: rstickgold@hms.harvard.edu
      • Contact: Tony Cunningham, PhD; Phone Number: 617-632-7927; Email: acunnin4@bidmc.harvard.edu
      • Sub-Investigator: Robert Stickgold, PhD

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 35 years (ADULT)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

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)

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Interventional Model: PARALLEL
• Masking: NONE

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
NO_INTERVENTION: Overnight sleep; Subjects are permitted a night of polysomnograph-recorded sleep before participating in training and testing sessions the next day
ACTIVE_COMPARATOR: Sleep deprivation; Subjects sleep deprived before participating in training and testing sessions the next day	Behavioral: Sleep Deprivation; Subjects are sleep deprived for an entire night
EXPERIMENTAL: Daytime Nap; Subjects are trained and then retested after a daytime nap	Behavioral: Sleep Deprivation; Subjects are sleep deprived for an entire night; Behavioral: Daytime nap; After a night of sleep deprivation, participants will be given a 2 hour nap opportunity

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Morphed Face Accuracy and Intensity	Participants are asked to identify and rate emotional intensity of ambiguous emotional faces (happy, sad, angry) that have been morphed with neutral faces. Scores for each emotional domain will be calculated as (i) accuracy score (number of faces correctly identified over total faces seen), and (ii) average emotional intensity rating. Task will be completed at baseline, post-sleep/sleep deprivation, and post-nap/no nap, and within-subject comparisons will determine how interventions impact emotional perception.	1-24 hours
Emotional Memory Tradeoff Memory Score	Following sleep or sleep deprivation, participants will complete emotional memory tradeoff recognition task at two time points, separated by a nap or wakefulness. Corrected hit rate will be calculated for negative and neutral scene components as the percentage of correctly identified "old" objects/backgrounds minus percentage of false alarms ("new" pictures marked as "old")	12-24 hours
Psychomotor vigilance task lapse rate	The absolute number of trials in a 5-min test period on which the participant fails to responds with 500ms is calculated as the lapse rate.	1-24 hours

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
fMRI measured neural reactivity (blood oxygen-level dependent signal)	Following sleep or sleep deprivation, regions of interest include amygdala reactivity and connectivity between the amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in response to negative and neutral stimuli.	12-24 hours
Heart Rate Reactivity (Beats per minute)	The change in heart rate beats per minute in response to negative and neutral stimuli after sleep or sleep deprivation.	12-24 hours
Skin Conductance Reactivity (micro Siemens)	The change in electrodermal activity in response to negative and neutral stimuli after sleep or sleep deprivation.	12-24 hours

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
• Collaborators: Boston College
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Tony Cunningham, PhD, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (ACTUAL): March 1, 2019
• Primary Completion (ANTICIPATED): December 31, 2023
• Study Completion (ANTICIPATED): December 31, 2023

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 5, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 5, 2018
• First Posted (ACTUAL): December 6, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ACTUAL): February 8, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 4, 2023
• Last Verified: February 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Emotion; Sleep; Memory; Sleep Deprivation
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Nervous System Diseases; Dyssomnias; Sleep Wake Disorders; Neurologic Manifestations; Sleep Deprivation
• Other Study ID Numbers: TC-1

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No