The Effect of Sleep Loss on Emotion Regulation

The Impact of Insufficient Sleep and Insomnia Disorder on Behavioral and Neural Markers of Emotion Regulation

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.

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Insomnia; Sleep; Sleep Deprivation
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Sleep Restriction

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.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 90
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Tony J Cunningham, PhD; Phone Number: 617-667-3337; Email: acunnin4@BIDMC.Harvard.edu

Study Locations

• United States
  • Massachusetts
    • Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02215
      • Recruiting
      • Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
      • Contact: Tony Cunningham, PhD; Phone Number: 617-667-4702; Email: acunnin4@bidmc.harvard.edu
      • Contact: Janet Mullington, PhD; Phone Number: 617-667-0434; Email: jmulling@BIDMC.Harvard.edu

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 40 years (Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

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:

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

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Basic Science
• Allocation: Non-Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: 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
Active Comparator: 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	Behavioral: Sleep Restriction; Three nights of sleep restricted to 4 hours per night.
No Intervention: 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

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Baseline Emotional Regulation Task with Strategy	Baseline behavioral ratings to emotional stimuli with emotion regulation strategies	Day 1
Baseline Emotional Regulation Task without Strategy	Baseline behavioral ratings to emotional stimuli without emotion regulation strategies	Day 1
Reassessment of the Emotional Regulation Task with Strategy Baseline behavioral ratings to emotional stimuli with or without emotion regulation strategies	Behavioral ratings to emotional stimuli with emotion regulation strategies following normal sleep or sleep restriction	one test in a 3-6 day window
Reassessment of the Emotional Regulation Task without Strategy Baseline behavioral ratings to emotional stimuli with or without emotion regulation strategies	Behavioral ratings to emotional stimuli without emotion regulation strategies following normal sleep or sleep restriction	one test in a 3-6 day window

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)	fMRI measured neural reactivity (blood oxygen-level dependent signal)	one test in a 3-6 day window

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Janet M Mullington, PhD, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): May 11, 2023
• Primary Completion (Estimated): January 1, 2027
• Study Completion (Estimated): July 31, 2027

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: May 20, 2022
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 24, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): May 26, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): July 27, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 25, 2023
• Last Verified: July 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Emotion; Sleep; Emotion Regulation; Insomnia Disorder; Sleep Restriction; functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Nervous System Diseases; Sleep Disorders, Intrinsic; Dyssomnias; Sleep Wake Disorders; Neurologic Manifestations; Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders; Sleep Deprivation
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2022P000120

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: We are developing our institutional data sharing plan

Drug and device information, study documents

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