Basic Research
Current Projects in Basic Sleep Research
Basic sleep research projects currently underway at the
Centre include:
Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project
The relative impacts of sleep, wake and the internal body clock on human performance
Dr. Greg Roach
We have developed and tested a brand new experimental protocol that will allow us, for the first time ever, to determine the relative influences of two important physiological systems - sleep/wake and body clock - on human performance. This is a very important issue because people who do shiftwork - irregular shifts, long hours, night work - are constantly dealing with disruptions to to their sleep patterns and their body clocks. Both types of disruption impair our ability to function effectively and increase the risk of accidents and errors in the workplace. This project could result in safer work schedules in safety-critical industries (e.g. aviation, healthcare, emergency services, road transport).
The 24-hour society presents a number of challenges to the shiftworker. First, shiftworkers have to maintain a balance between the competing needs of work, family, leisure and social life. Second, shitwork has been identified as a risk factor for obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Third, shiftworkers have an increased risk of injury and death at work. This project will use an innovative research protocol to provide critical information about the independent and combined effects of sleep loss and body clock disruption on human performance. Work schedules designed on the basis of a better understanding of sleep loss and circadian disruption will result in healthier employees, safer workplaces and reduced costs to the community.
Australian Research Council
(ARC) Linkage Project (with the Australian Institute of Sport)
Sleeping for gold: The influence of sleep on the sports performance of elite athletes
Dr. Greg Roach, Dr. Charli Sargent, Michele Lastella
We have good understanding of the importance of sleep for peeople in the general population. We know how much sleep they need, what happens if they dont get enough sleep, and how work schedules affect their sleep patterns. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of elite athletes. For the first time, we will determine how much sleep elite athletes typically obtain, how sleep affects their sports performance and how sleep is affected by training load. This information will be used to design education packages and training schedules for Australian athletes in preparation for the 2012 Olympic Games. In turn, these athletes will help spread a healthy sleep message to the general population, particularly for Australian children.
The aim of this project is to improve the performance of Australias elite athletes by enhancing the amount and quality of sleep that they obtain. This project has three major benefits. Firstly, successful role models will encourage more Australian children and adults to participate in sport. This is critical given that the incidence of obesity (a major risk factor for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some forms of cancer) has doubled in Australia in the last 15 years as participation in sport has dropped. Second, the success of our elite athletes will provide a source of pride in our achievements as a nation. Thirdly, this research will enable the Australian Institute of Sport to remain as an international leader in sports science research.
Visit the Australian Institute of Sport website at: http://www.ausport.gov.au/ais.
Sleep education
The Australian Government and the South Australian Health Department have
funded Dr. Sarah Blunden and a team of researchers from the University of
South Australia to conduct a randomized control trial in 12 South Australian
schools in 2011 and 2012. The funding totals $249,000 over three years.
We have already delivered the
Australian Centre for Education in Sleep (ACES) program to over 100 middle school
students with another 140 to be targeted by the end of 2012. This is the
first trial of its size in Australia. We are testing to see if the delivery
of sleep education in a comprehensive format in schools, as part of their
school curriculum can change sleep habits (sleep hygiene, sleep duration),
and also if it improves secondary outcomes such as attention span, quality
of life and general wellbeing, mood,
physical activity levels and media usage.
Investigating sleep habits in students in rural and remote schools
Sleep habits in young people can alter significantly
between metropolitan and rural and remote areas. This is due to
factors such as an increased amount of shift working families (e.g. due to
mining), and the difficulty if getting kids to bed at a reasonable hour when
parents in rural communities attend school
and sport club committee meetings and there is a lack of child care
or family support. Additionally, in some rural and central Australian
places, the heat in summer is so great that late night activity, in the
cooler hours, is more common than on the city. How does this effect
children’s sleep and their daytime functioning.
To understand this more clearly, Dr. Sarah Blunden is engaging rural and
remote communities in research and evaluation activities. This has begun in
Coober Pedy, SA but data is yet to be analysed. In addition, Dr. Sarah
Blunden has been invited to be part of the “Scientist in Schools” program
with the School of the Air in South Australia, to engage with and guide
remote children increase their understanding of sleep, sleep research, sleep
science and sleep health.
The
ACES sleep education program for junior schools has been adapted and
remodeled as an smaller online program
as part of the Philips
SimplyHealthy@schools program. The aim of this program is to make available sleep education information
FREE around the world to any school group who wishes to increase their
knowledge of sleep.
Sleep debt in adolescents
School sleep schedules in adolescent girls in the community: A pilot study
investigating the effect of weekday vs. weekend sleep on mood and biological
markers.
Sleep loss is related to low
mood in adolescents. Adolescents also experience sleep debt and subsequent
sleepiness during the school week and evidence suggests they recuperate this
sleep debt on weekends. Therefore they experience
differences between week and weekday sleep. Recent evidence suggests that in
the community, this recuperation may not be sufficient and sleepiness on
Monday mornings may in fact be significantly worse than other days. Few studies have evaluated these variables in
the community.
In addition,
subsequent endocrine responses that
occur because of this in adults
(i.e.
urinary catecholamines)
have not been measured in adolescent girls in a community-based setting.
This study aimed therefore to measure sleep,
sleepiness and mood levels
as well as measuring any changes in biological
markers for 10 days (two weekends) in adolescent girls in the community
Over a 10-day period at home (Saturday to Monday), 23 adolescent girls (mean
age 14.2 y) recorded sleep for 10 consecutive days (sleep diaries,
actigraphy) and collected waking urine on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and
Monday. Urine samples were assayed for adrenaline and noradrenalin. Data analyses
are not complete but to date, mean sleep is significantly different between
week and weekend (p<0.05). Assays of
catecholamines are underway to assess and compare the effect of weekday vs.
weekend sleep on adrenaline and noradrenaline.
Preliminary sleep data suggest that sleep in these adolescent girls differs
significantly between week and weekend days. If this equates to changes in
urinary catecholamines in adolescents girls, this will mirror data seen in
adults and bolster the argument for greater sleep health in adolescents.
Investigations into the effects of the cognitive processes of explanation and evaluation
Dr. Chris Bearman
This research consists of an ongoing set of investigation into the cognitive processes of explanation and evaluation and the effects that these processes have on the retrieval of prior information. Four experiments have been conducted to date that have explored effects on analogical transfer of evaluating solutions to base problems. In contrast to reports of positive effects of explanation, evaluation consistently reduced transfer rates and impaired mental representations of base material. This effect was not ameliorated by encoding for a later memory test, summarising, or engaging in similar processes at encoding and recall. However, providing a prior explanation task removed the inhibitory effect of evaluation. It appears that evaluation leads to encoding of extraneous material that interferes with access to solution-critical analogous information. Prior explanation inoculates against negative effects on transfer by ensuring that new information introduced via evaluation is organised around existing representations of relevant information of the base problem. The results suggest that the source of difficulty in analogical transfer may reside not only in retrieval and mapping but also in the initial encoding of problems.
References
Bearman C, Ormerod TC, Ball LJ & Deptula D. Explaining away the negative effects of evaluation on analogical transfer: The perils of premature evaluation. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2011; 64: 942-958
Past Projects
The effect of temperature biofeedback on sleep and cardiac
autonomic tone in young and aged adults
(2004, funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant)
Funded by an ARC Discovery Grant for 2003–2005, Dr Kurt Lushington and Dr Cameron van den Heuvel are continuing an innovative research program aiming to treat insomnia based on conscious control of peripheral thermoregulation. Assisted by students from the UniSA School of Psychology, healthy volunteers are trained in the use of temperature biofeedback, a technique that provides some conscious control of hand skin temperature without using drugs. Subsequent laboratory assessments have revealed that the biofeedback technique is very successful in improving sleepiness in limited trials. We have already collected pilot data from young healthy adults and a small group of young adult insomniacs. The research will continue in 2005, enlisting older adults to assess the utility of biofeedback across age and sleep status as a viable treatment for insomnia.
Key researchers: Kurt Lushington, Cameron van den Heuvel.
The effects of sleep disturbance on behaviour and academic performance in children
(2004–2005, funded by the Channel 7 Children's Research Foundation)
This research project, funded by Channel 7 Research Foundation and in collaboration with Associate Professor Ron Chervin (University of Michigan) aims to continue similar research undertaken in South Australia last year where the sleep and school grades of children in specialist behavioural units for disruptive behaviour were compared to children in mainstream schools. The research underway this year duplicates this study in 6 Northern Territory schools in healthy children between ages 6–12 years. All participating children and parents completed questionnaires about sleep with sleep diaries, behaviour, Body Mass Indices (BMI), and bullying while school grades were gathered from teachers. We expect to see higher sleep disturbance in children with poorer school grades and worse behaviour. We are interested in evaluating if children with higher BMI have disturbed sleep, if children who sleep less are more likely to bully and we will also compare sleep in indigenous children with non-indigenous children.
Key researchers: Sarah Blunden, Nicole Lamond, Ron Chervin (University of Michigan).
Infrared thermal imaging: An innovative technique to assess peripheral body temperature
(2002–2004, National Health and Medical Research Council)
Much of the recent laboratory research conducted by our Psychophysiology Research Group has shown that normal daily changes in body temperature play a significant role in regulating an individual's level of sleepiness. In 2004, Dr Cameron van den Heuvel and Dr Sally Ferguson completed an NH&MRC-funded study investigating possible causes for difficulty getting to sleep (i.e. sleep onset insomnia). Insomnia is widespread, affecting up to half of the general population at some point in their lives. Using digital infrared thermal imaging as a novel supplement to more traditional contact thermometry measures, we have discovered that the thermoregulatory system of insomniacs has specific impairments compared to healthy adults who sleep normally. This is an important new discovery that sheds some light onto the previously poorly defined causes of insomnia. It is hoped that this research, to be published in 2005, will provide the basis for future effective treatments of insomnia that are based on the underlying physiological cause.
Key researchers: Cameron van den Heuvel, Sally Ferguson.
Brief naps as a countermeasure to fatigue
Dr Sally Ferguson has been awarded an ARC Discovery grant with Professor Leon Lack of the Sleep Research Laboratory at Flinders University. This grant begins in 2005 and will investigate the validity of napping as a countermeasure to fatigue. Fatigue is a major contributor to deaths and injuries both on the road and in many workplaces. This project will study the effects of short naps (1–20 minutes) at different times of the day and night on individuals alertness levels and neurobehavioural performance. Ultimately, it is hoped that information from such studies will provide a sound scientific basis for the development of napping strategies for drivers and workers to prevent fatigue-related accidents.
Key researchers: Sally Ferguson.
Legal blood alcohol concentration and afternoon sleepiness: What are safe levels for driving?
(2005, Australian Brewer's Foundation Alcohol-Related Medical Research Grant)
Dr Stuart Baulk and Dr Cameron van den Heuvel currently hold positions as Affiliate Researchers at the Adelaide Institute of Sleep Health, Repatriation General Hospital, collaborating specifically with the Director, Prof. Doug McEvoy. Their research will focus on an investigation of sleepiness and driving impairment in both normal and sleep disordered subjects. This one year funded project aims to examine closely the effects of low to moderate levels of alcohol consumption in combination with real-life levels of sleep deprivation, on driving performance using a simulated driving task with both male and female young adult drivers. The important measures include accuracy in lane-keeping, speed regulation, and self-perception of performance. The findings of this study will have important implications for public health, and may influence the focus of future public education campaigns on road safety and responsible alcohol consumption.
Both alcohol consumption and sleepiness are recognised as direct causes of a significant number of motor vehicle accidents worldwide. Some recent research has also shown that alcohol intoxication at legally acceptable levels, in combination with excessive sleepiness is another significant predictor of motor vehicle accidents. However, although well researched separately, this combination has not yet been adequately investigated. In particular, no studies have systematically examined the effects of different levels of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) on driving performance under conditions of sleep restriction. In addition, little is known about the likely interaction of these factors with gender or the effects on drivers' attitudes to impairment.
Key researchers: Stuart Baulk, Cameron van den Heuvel, Doug McEvoy (Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health, Repatriation General Hospital).