Identifying stable objective markers of stress-related sleep disturbances: Laboratory and home-based, repeated measurement of cortical hyperarousal and inflammatory upregulation during nocturnal sleep

• Applicant: Dr. Borbála Blaskovich
• Subject Area: Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 506518262

The prevalence of sleep disorders in the general population is getting to an all-time high. Stress-related sleep difficulties such as insomnia symptoms or frequent nightmares significantly increase the risk of developing further physical and/or mental disorders such as depression, anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), inflammatory disorder and increased rate of suicidality. Identification of reliable physiological markers in order to recognize those at greater risk and in the long run to use this knowledge in the development of marker specific prevention methods has never been more of an urgent matter.The aim of the proposed project is to identify underlying mechanisms behind stress-related sleep disturbances with a special focus on cortical hyperarousal measured during longitudinal, home-based sleep EEG recordings and potentially related inflammatory upregulation. The whole procedure will be divided into two main parts. The first part will use the traditional two-night (habituation night, experimental night) sleep laboratory protocol. Nocturnal sleep will be monitored by PSG and the EEG headband and inflammatory markers will be acquired regularly through a catheter as well as in the form of evening and morning saliva samples during the experimental night. After the traditional laboratory measurements, the second part will concentrate on a seven-day long follow up observation and measurement of daily routine. During this part, sleep fragmentation and cortical hyperarousal (measured by the EEG headband) will be analyzed within participants on time effects and between participants with healthy sleep habits and stress-related sleep disturbances in order to map characteristic changes in sleep architecture and their stability. Furthermore, pro-inflammatory markers will be measured on a day-to-day basis. Morning and evening saliva samples as well as daily morning capillary blood samples will be measured in order to investigate the role of low-grade inflammation and the day-to-day variability of inflammatory upregulation in participants with stress-related sleep disturbances and healthy sleepers. Last but not least, to map the complex and dynamic relationship among everyday stress, sleep reactivity and immunological upregulation we will additionally assess daily photoplethysmogaphy (PPG) and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) measurements (subjective sleep, stress level and exposure).The results from this project will help us characterize underlying mechanisms behind stress-related sleep disturbances, which could serve as early markers of potential risk-factors of psychiatric disorders as well as help to envision more process-specific, targeted prevention techniques, interventions and treatments in clinical psychology and psychiatry.

• DFG Programme: WBP Position