Understanding the Transactional Dynamics between Predictors and Consequences of Sleep Disturbances with Ecologically-Valid Assessment

Focused Projects Grant for Junior Investigators

Jack Peltz, PhD
SUNY Brockport

Key Project Outcomes

The generous funding from the AASM Foundation yielded a collection of data that is currently quite rare in the field. Specifically, we collected ambulatory EEG data via the Muse S (Interaxon, Inc.) for 10 consecutive nights from 156 healthy emerging adults (i.e., college students), in addition to diverse survey-based measures of functioning, a 10-day self-reported sleep/mood diary, objective environmental measurements (i.e., light/temperature/sound levels). The grant was a springboard to subsequent funding opportunities, which included working with Labfront/Garmin to also include assessments of heart-rate variability in half of our sample. 

Although our manuscripts are currently under review, we have strong evidence to support daily, bidirectional links between mood and REM sleep durations. In addition, our results suggest that subjective reports of sleep quality, a critical question often asked in visits to one’s physician, do not paint a uniform picture of sleep architecture that one would associate with high-quality sleep. 

These initial results highlight one of the goals of the grant: to assess sleep in an ecologically-valid manner across multiple nights. Data analyses are ongoing, but the success of this project will certainly provide a strong framework for future grant applications.