CAREER: Longitudinal study of the effects of baseline sleep on emotional regulation in the context of real-life stressors

职业：在现实生活压力背景下基线睡眠对情绪调节影响的纵向研究

• 批准号: 2237419
• 负责人: Itamar Lerner
• 金额: $ 72.5万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at San Antonio
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-08-01 至 2028-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2237419&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Longitudinal; study; effects; baseline

How we handle stress and process stressful experiences affects many aspects of our daily lives. A growing body of evidence suggests that sleep, particularly the sleep stage when we dream known as Rapid-Eye Movement (REM) sleep, plays a significant role in the processing of stress. In lab studies, REM sleep has been shown to alleviate stress under certain laboratory conditions and increase it in others. However, not enough is known about the way habitual, day-to-day sleep influences future stress responses, especially in real-life situations. Moreover, stress is known to affect the quality of sleep, potentially creating a vicious cycle where stress interrupts sleep which hinders the processing of stress. This project studies first responders to attempt to better understand the relationship between REM sleep, stressful events, and how well people cope with and perform under stress. In this project, critical questions about the relationship between sleep and stress are addressed through a longitudinal study, using mobile sleep monitoring devices that measure EEG signals from the brain. Physiological sleep measures from firefighters and paramedics are collected for multiple nights prior to their exposure to highly stressful real-life events as part of their routine fieldwork, as well as a year later. In addition, various behavioral and physiological measures of stress are collected on several time points during this year. These include post-traumatic stress symptoms, brain activity from relevant regions such as the amygdala and prefrontal cortex during an emotionally engaging task, and other demographic and personality traits that may modulate the effects. The researcher aims to clarify whether habitual sleep, particularly REM sleep, can predict vulnerability to stress in such real-life scenarios, what brain areas may be involved in this relationship, and what factors determine if REM sleep increases or decreases such vulnerability. The project also aims to support advancing the visibility and access to the neuroscience of sleep and cognition through a series of talks made available for the public, organizing workshops for promising student from underrepresented groups in science, and an opportunity to join the lab for hands-on experience in sleep research. Overall, this project attempts to bring sleep and stress research from the lab to the real world, thus bridging gaps in the literature and potentially establishing protocols to help future emergency responders to become less sensitive to stressful events.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

我们如何处理压力和处理压力经历会影响我们日常生活的许多方面。越来越多的证据表明，睡眠，尤其是我们做梦的睡眠阶段，即快速眼动睡眠 (REM)，在压力处理中发挥着重要作用。在实验室研究中，快速眼动睡眠已被证明可以在某些实验室条件下减轻压力，并在其他条件下增加压力。然而，人们对习惯性日常睡眠如何影响未来的压力反应（尤其是在现实生活中）的方式知之甚少。此外，众所周知，压力会影响睡眠质量，可能会形成恶性循环，压力会中断睡眠，从而阻碍压力的处理。该项目研究急救人员，试图更好地了解快速眼动睡眠、压力事件以及人们在压力下的应对和表现之间的关系。 在该项目中，通过纵向研究解决了有关睡眠和压力之间关系的关键问题，使用移动睡眠监测设备测量来自大脑的脑电图信号。作为日常现场工作的一部分，我们收集了消防员和护理人员在接触高压力现实生活事件之前的多个晚上以及一年后的生理睡眠测量数据。此外，在今年的几个时间点收集了各种压力的行为和生理测量值。这些包括创伤后应激症状、在情感参与任务期间相关区域（例如杏仁核和前额叶皮层）的大脑活动，以及可能调节影响的其他人口和人格特征。研究人员旨在澄清习惯性睡眠，特别是快速眼动睡眠，是否可以预测在这种现实生活场景中对压力的脆弱性，哪些大脑区域可能参与这种关系，以及哪些因素决定快速眼动睡眠是否会增加或减少这种脆弱性。该项目还旨在通过一系列向公众开放的讲座、为来自科学领域代表性不足群体的有前途的学生组织研讨会以及加入实验室获得睡眠研究实践经验的机会，支持提高睡眠和认知神经科学的知名度和可及性。总体而言，该项目试图将睡眠和压力研究从实验室带入现实世界，从而弥合文献中的空白，并有可能建立协议来帮助未来的应急响应人员降低对压力事件的敏感度。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。