Effects of Adolescent Sleep Restriction on Neural and Neurobehavioral Functioning

描述(申请人提供)：数百万美国青少年在发育关键时期长期睡眠不足，睡眠不足的短期影响可能会产生严重的长期后果。尽管青春期睡眠不足与健康状况不佳有关，但从以前的研究中得出的结论受到其相关性的限制。一些实验研究表明，睡眠不足的青少年很容易入睡，但这只解释了睡眠不足对行为产生的可疑影响之一，并没有解决对大脑功能的影响。其他发育阶段的实验研究表明，睡眠不足会改变大脑活动，导致行为缺陷，最突出的是注意力不集中。然而，来自幼儿的研究结果太不完整，与太不同的需求有关，而且基于太不相似的睡眠生理学，不能推断到青少年。同样，成人的研究结果在应用于青少年时缺乏生态学(“真实世界”)的有效性，也没有考虑发展因素。该领域缺乏适合发育的实验工作，无法确定睡眠不足是否以及如何改变青少年的神经和神经行为功能。这限制了人们对长期睡眠限制对青少年的影响所能得出的结论，并减缓了改善青少年睡眠的公共卫生倡议。我们多学科研究计划的总体目标是通过澄清青春期睡眠不足的近端和远端影响来促进科学和促进公共健康。为了对正在进行和计划通过我们的项目进行的关于远距离影响的纵向工作进行补充和提供信息，本研究将检查实验性睡眠限制对健康青少年神经和行为功能的近期影响，重点是持续注意力的基本神经行为系统。100名青少年将接受受试者内部的随机交叉方案，其中包括五个晚上在睡眠剥夺条件下(SD；6.5小时在床上熄灯)和五个晚上在健康持续状态(HD；10小时在熄灯情况下)，然后在每个周末进行晨间评估。中心假设是，与HD条件相比，SD条件下的青少年将表现出注意力缺陷，这将反映在对神经功能的直接评估(EEG和fMRI)和行为测量中。本研究旨在探讨睡眠限制对青少年神经行为功能的近期影响，睡眠限制对青少年持续注意任务时脑功能的影响，以及睡眠剥夺青少年神经状态与神经行为表现之间的关系。为了实现这些目标，这项研究将确定长期睡眠限制对青少年日常功能的重要方面的影响，并对这种影响背后的神经机制有新的见解。与公共健康相关：由于公众长期认为长期睡眠限制是青春期正常且最终无害的一部分，以及我们科学知识的空白使得这种态度持续存在，改善青少年睡眠的倡议已经放缓。这项研究将通过确定青春期睡眠不足对“现实世界”结果和大脑功能的影响，填补关键的知识空白，并推进公共政策辩论。这项研究提供了青春期关键时期长期睡眠限制的影响的严格“快照”，还将帮助我们解释对青少年睡眠与成人行为和大脑功能之间的关系进行的纵向研究得出的数据。最后，这些发现将对青少年睡眠和注意力的基础研究产生影响，将儿童睡眠的文献与注意力的神经科学联系起来，并为研究儿童注意力问题背后的大脑机制开辟了新的途径。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Millions of US adolescents are chronically sleep-deprived during a developmentally critical period, when the proximal effects of sleep deprivation may have serious long-term consequences. Although inadequate sleep during adolescence has been associated with poor health outcomes, the conclusions that can be drawn from prior studies are limited by their correlational nature. A few experimental studies have shown that sleep-deprived adolescents fall asleep easily, but this accounts for only one of the suspected effects of sleep deprivation on behavior and does not address effects on brain functioning. Experimental studies from other developmental periods have suggested that inadequate sleep alters brain activity and causes behavioral deficits, most prominently inattention. However, findings from young children are too incomplete, relate to demands that are too different, and are based upon a sleep physiology that is too dissimilar, to be extrapolated to adolescents. Similarly, adult findings lack ecological ("real world") validity when applied to adolescents and do not take into account developmental factors. The field lacks developmentally-appropriate experimental work that conclusively determines whether and how inadequate sleep alters adolescents' neural and neurobehavioral functioning. This has limited the conclusions one can draw about the effects that chronic sleep restriction has on adolescents and has slowed public health initiatives to improve adolescent sleep. The overall goal of our multidisciplinary research program is to advance science and promote public health by clarifying the proximal and distal effects of inadequate sleep during adolescence. To complement and inform the longitudinal work on distal effects that is underway and planned through our program, the current study will examine the proximal impact of experimental sleep restriction on healthy adolescents' neural and behavioral functioning, focusing on the fundamental neurobehavioral system of sustained attention. 100 adolescents will undergo a within-subjects randomized crossover protocol that includes five nights in a sleep deprivation condition (SD; 6.5 hours in bed with lights out) and five in an healthy duration condition (HD;10 hours with lights out), followed by morning assessments at the end of each week. The central hypothesis is that, relative to the HD condition, adolescents in the SD condition will display attention deficits that will be reflected in direct assessments of neural functioning (EEG and fMRI) and in behavioral measures. This study aims to determine (1) the proximal impact of sleep restriction on adolescents' neurobehavioral functioning, (2) the impact of sleep restriction on adolescents' brain functioning while they are engaged in sustained attention tasks, and (3) the relationship between neural state and neurobehavioral performance in sleep-deprived adolescents. In achieving these aims, this study will determine the impact of chronic sleep restriction on important aspects of the daily functioning of adolescents, and gain new insight into the neural mechanisms that underlie this impact. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Initiatives to improve adolescent sleep have been slowed by enduring public attitudes that chronic sleep restriction is a normal and ultimately benign part of adolescence, and by gaps in our scientific knowledge that allow such attitudes to persist. This study will fill key knowledge gaps and advance the public policy debate by establishing the effects of inadequate sleep during adolescence both on "real world" outcomes and on brain functioning. By providing a rigorous "snapshot" of the effects of chronic sleep restriction during the critical period of adolescence, this study will also help us to interpret data that come out of longitudinal studies of the relationships between adolescent sleep and adult behavioral and brain functioning. Finally, findings will have implications for basic research into adolescent sleep and attention, linking the literature on pediatric sleep with the neuroscience of attention and opening new avenues for examining the brain mechanisms which underlie pediatric attention problems.