Passive phototherapy to improve sleep in teens

这是一个几乎无处不在的现象--青少年很难早早入睡， 整晚的睡眠。由此产生的睡眠减少与各种负面后果有关 包括抑郁、药物滥用、疲劳、学业或工作表现差、社交能力差， 冒险行为增加，患糖尿病和肥胖症的风险增加。根据 根据2020年健康人健康与人类服务部的数据， 9-12年级获得充足的睡眠-这一数字自2009年以来一直保持不变。这种普遍的损失， 青春期的睡眠往往会使青少年和家庭都变得虚弱。生物（天然） 昼夜节律定时的延迟）和社会原因，这是相互加强的，对于睡眠定时的这种延迟。 作为一种生物成分的治疗方法，明亮的光线“光疗”通常用于青少年 想早点睡觉的人这种治疗通常包括每天1-2小时的强光照射 在期望的唤醒时间之前;这种治疗意味着将生物钟的定时提前到更早的时间。 小时这意味着，一个需要在早上7点起床上学的青少年， 每天早上5点或6点，在明亮的灯光前坐上几个小时（昼夜节律的变化会恢复到 没有每天的光照），一个困难的，如果不是不可能的一套指示遵循。我们最近 证明：（1）短暂的毫秒级闪光序列比连续光更有效， 改变生物钟的时间，（2）在睡眠期间暴露于这种光序列的影响 昼夜节律时间不会显着干扰睡眠，以及（3）在家暴露于此类序列， 青少年自我报告的每晚睡眠时间增加了近一个小时。我们假设这样的光 序列可以增加睡眠时间的客观测量，以及改善青少年的情绪和认知。 为了检验这些假设，将招募全日制高中入学的青少年， 参加一项为期10周的在家安慰剂对照平行组研究，随后是一项为期10周的开放标签研究 study.对于平行组研究的10周中的8周和开放标签研究的所有10周期间， 青少年在睡觉时会受到一系列闪光的照射。质量和数量 客观确定的睡眠，从青少年和父母的角度测量情绪， 和执行功能，将在方案之前、期间和结束时捕获。 这项实验的结果可能会从根本上改变延迟睡眠的治疗方式， 显著改善青少年的睡眠，同时改善情绪，学习成绩， 家庭生活这项研究的结果也将有助于了解睡眠期间的光管理 可用于治疗基于昼夜节律的睡眠障碍，如时差，轮班工作睡眠障碍， 和高级睡眠觉醒阶段障碍

It is a nearly ubiquitous phenomenon – teens have a difficult time going to sleep early enough to get a full night of sleep. The resulting sleep curtailment is associated with a variety of negative consequences including depression, substance abuse, fatigue, poor academic or work performance, poor socialization, increased risk-taking behavior, and an increased risk for the development of diabetes and obesity. According to the Department of Health and Human Services in Healthy People 2020, fewer than one-third of all students in grades 9-12 get sufficient sleep – a number that has remained unchanged since 2009. This pervasive loss of sleep in adolescence is often debilitating for both the teen and the family. There are both biological (natural delay in circadian timing) and social causes, which are mutually reinforcing, for this delay in sleep timing. As a treatment for the biological component, bright light “phototherapy” is often prescribed for teens who wish to go to sleep earlier. This treatment often consists of 1-2 hours of bright light administered every day prior to desired wake time; this treatment is meant to advance the timing of the circadian clock to an earlier hour. This means that an adolescent who needs to wake up at 7AM for school would need instead to wake up at 5 or 6 AM and sit in front of bright lights for hours every day (the changes in circadian timing would revert without the daily light exposure), a difficult if not impossible set of instructions to follow. We have recently demonstrated that: (1) sequences of brief, millisecond light flashes are more potent than continuous light at changing the timing of the circadian clock, (2) exposure to such sequences of light during sleep impacts circadian timing without significantly interfering with sleep, and (3) at-home exposure to such sequences to teens increases self-reported nightly sleep by nearly one-hour per night. We hypothesize that such a light sequence can increase objective measures of sleep length, as well as improve mood and cognition in teens. In order to examine these hypotheses, adolescents enrolled full-time in high school will be recruited to take part in a 10-week, at-home placebo-controlled parallel group study, followed by a 10-week open-label study. For 8 of the 10 weeks of the parallel group study and during all 10 weeks of the open-label study, adolescents will be exposed to a sequence of flashes while they sleep. The quality and quantity of their objectively-determined sleep, measurements of mood from both the adolescent’s and the parent’s perspectives, and executive function, will be captured before, during, and at the end of the protocol. Results from this experiment could fundamentally change the manner in which delayed sleep is treated, significantly improving sleep in adolescents and simultaneously improving mood, academic performance, and family life. Results from this study will also be useful in understanding how light administration during sleep could be useful in the treatment of circadian-based sleep disorders, such as jet lag, shift work sleep disorder, and Advanced Sleep Wake Phase Disorder.