Effect of Lemborexant on Daytime Functioning in Adults With Insomnia: Patient-Reported Outcomes From a Phase 3 Clinical Trial.

Insomnia and some insomnia treatments can impact an individual's daytime functioning. Here, we performed post hoc analyses of patient-reported outcomes from a phase 3 clinical trial to assess the impact of lemborexant (LEM), a dual orexin receptor antagonist, on daytime functioning. Adults with insomnia were randomized 1:1:1 to receive placebo, LEM 5 mg (LEM5) or LEM 10 mg (LEM10) for 6 months.

Self-reported physical activity and sleep quality is associated with working memory function in middle-aged and older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While previous work has shown a positive relationship between cognitive performance and lifestyle factors in younger adults, evidence for this relationship among middle-aged and older adults has been mixed. The current study aimed to further test the relationship among physical activity, sleep quality, and memory performance in middle-aged and older adults, and to test whether this relationship holds up during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results showed that physical activity was associated with better sleep quality and better working memory performance, and better sleep quality was associated with better working memory and self-perceptions of everyday memory abilities.

The role of pubertal status and sleep satisfaction in emotion reactivity and regulation in children and adolescents.

Study Objectives: This study investigated the role of pubertal status and hormones in the association between sleep satisfaction and self-reported emotion functioning in 256 children and adolescents aged 8-15.

Methods: Self-report data was provided on sleep duration, sleep satisfaction, and emotion reactivity and regulation, and a saliva sample was obtained for hormone measures. A subset of children also wore an Actigraph watch to measure sleep for a week.

Contributions of post-learning REM and NREM sleep to memory retrieval.

It has become clear that sleep after learning has beneficial effects on the later retrieval of newly acquired memories. The neural mechanisms underlying these effects are becoming increasingly clear as well, particularly those of non-REM sleep. However, much is still unknown about the sleep and memory relationship: the sleep state or features of sleep physiology that associate with memory performance often vary by task or experimental design, and the nature of this variability is not entirely clear.

Hyperarousal Is Associated with Socioemotional Processing in Individuals with Insomnia Symptoms and Good Sleepers.

Despite complaints of difficulties in waking socioemotional functioning by individuals with insomnia, only a few studies have investigated emotion processing performance in this group. Additionally, the role of sleep in socioemotional processing has not been investigated extensively nor using quantitative measures of sleep. Individuals with insomnia symptoms ( = 14) and healthy good sleepers ( = 15) completed two nights of at-home polysomnography, followed by an afternoon of in-lab performance testing on tasks measuring the processing of emotional facial expressions.

Sleep restriction alters reactive aggressive behavior and its relationship with sex hormones.

Few studies have experimentally manipulated sleep to study its effect on aggressive behavior. The current study examined how reactive aggression was affected by having sleep restricted to 4-hours on a single night, a level of disruption commonly experienced. Both rested and sleep-restricted participants completed the Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm (PSAP), a laboratory task in which participants seek to earn points, are provoked by a fictitious opponent stealing their points, and may choose to steal points in response.

Changes in EEG multiscale entropy and power-law frequency scaling during the human sleep cycle.

We explored changes in multiscale brain signal complexity and power-law scaling exponents of electroencephalogram (EEG) frequency spectra across several distinct global states of consciousness induced in the natural physiological context of the human sleep cycle. We specifically aimed to link EEG complexity to a statistically unified representation of the neural power spectrum. Further, by utilizing surrogate-based tests of nonlinearity we also examined whether any of the sleep stage-dependent changes in entropy were separable from the linear stochastic effects contained in the power spectrum.

Influence of sleep on developing brain functions and structures in children and adolescents: A systematic review.

This systematic review examined the associations between sleep and brain functions and structures in children and adolescents aged 1-17 ys. Included studies (n = 24) were peer-reviewed and met the a priori determined population (apparently healthy children and adolescents aged 1 y to 17 ys), intervention/exposure/comparator (various sleep characteristics including duration, architecture, quality, timing), and outcome criteria (brain functions and/or brain structures, excluding cognitive function outcomes). Collectively, the reviewed studies report some relationships between inadequate sleep and resultant differences in brain functions or structures.

A daytime nap enhances visual working memory performance and alters event-related delay activity.

Working memory (WM) is impaired following sleep loss and may be improved after a nap. The goal of the current study was to better understand sleep-related WM enhancement by: (1) employing a WM task that assesses the ability to hold and report visual representations as well as the fidelity of the reports on a fine scale, (2) investigating neurophysiological properties of sleep and WM capacity as potential predictors or moderators of sleep-related enhancement, and (3) exploring frontal and occipital event-related delay activity to index the neural processing of stimuli in WM. In a within-subjects design, 36 young adults (M = 20, 20 men, 16 women) completed a 300-trial, continuous-report task of visual WM following a 90-min nap opportunity and an equivalent period of wakefulness.

Sleep physiology predicts memory retention after reactivation.

Both sleep and future relevance influence memory consolidation; however, limited research has investigated their role in memory reconsolidation. We manipulated the future relevance of both stable and labile memories in need of reconsolidation. Two groups learned two blocks of syllable pairs on one evening and were told they would be tested on one of the blocks later.

Performance monitoring following total sleep deprivation: effects of task type and error rate.

There is a need to understand the neural basis of performance deficits that result from sleep deprivation. Performance monitoring tasks generate response-locked event-related potentials (ERPs), generated from the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) located in the medial surface of the frontal lobe that reflect error processing. The outcome of previous research on performance monitoring during sleepiness has been mixed.

Sleep deprivation lowers reactive aggression and testosterone in men.

The role of sleep deprivation in aggressive behavior has not been systematically investigated, despite a great deal of evidence to suggest a relationship. We investigated the impact of 33 h of sleep loss on endocrine function and reactive aggression using the Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm (PSAP) task. PSAP performance was assessed in 24 young men and 25 women who were randomly assigned to a sleep deprivation or control condition.

Resting EEG in alpha and beta bands predicts individual differences in attentional blink magnitude.

Accuracy for a second target (T2) is reduced when it is presented within 500 ms of a first target (T1) in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) - an attentional blink (AB). There are reliable individual differences in the magnitude of the AB. Recent evidence has shown that the attentional approach that an individual typically adopts during a task or in anticipation of a task, as indicated by various measures, predicts individual differences in the AB deficit.

Event-related potentials during the transition to sleep for individuals with sleep-onset insomnia.

Event-related potentials may be applied to directly measure information-processing deficits associated with the problem of insomnia. This study is a systematic investigation of cortical hyperarousal during the sleep-onset period in participants with sleep-onset insomnia complaints. Thirteen poor sleepers and twelve good sleepers (GS) were administered an oddball task while awake in the morning and evening and during repeated sleep-onset attempts.

Anticipatory attention during the sleep onset period.

To examine whether anticipatory attention or expectancy is a cognitive process that is automatic or requires conscious control, we employed a paired-stimulus event-related potential (ERP) paradigm during the transition to sleep. The slow negative ERP wave observed between two successive stimuli, the Contingent Negative Variation (CNV), reflects attention and expectancy to the second stimulus. Thirteen good sleepers were instructed to respond to the second stimulus in a pair during waking sessions.

Benefits of napping in healthy adults: impact of nap length, time of day, age, and experience with napping.

Napping is a cross-cultural phenomenon which occurs across the lifespan. People vary widely in the frequency with which they nap as well as the improvements in alertness and well-being experienced. The systematic study of daytime napping is important to understand the benefits in alertness and performance that may be accrued from napping.

CNS arousal and neurobehavioral performance in a short-term sleep restriction paradigm.

Few studies have investigated waking electrophysiological measures of arousal during sleep restriction. This study examined electroencephalogram (EEG) activity and performance during a 96-hour laboratory protocol where participants slept a baseline night (8 h), were randomly assigned to 3-, 5-, or 8-hour sleep groups for the next two nights sleep restriction (SR1, SR2), and then slept a recovery night (8 h). There were dose-dependent deficits on measures of mood, sleepiness, and reaction time that were apparent during this short-term bout of sleep restriction.

Sensory gating impairments in poor sleepers during presleep wakefulness.

The neurocognitive model of insomnia predicts information processing deficits in poor sleepers. There is some evidence for deficits in later cognitive processing, but earlier sensory processing remains to be investigated. Paired-click stimuli were delivered to good and poor sleepers in a single night.

Physiological arousal and attention during a week of continuous sleep restriction.

Waking brain physiology underlying deficits from continuous sleep restriction (CSR) is not well understood. Fourteen good sleepers participated in a 21-day protocol where they slept their usual amount in a baseline week, had their time in bed restricted by 33% in a CSR week, and slept the desired amount in a recovery week. Participants slept at home, completing diaries and wearing activity monitors to verify compliance.

Dissociable learning-dependent changes in REM and non-REM sleep in declarative and procedural memory systems.

Sleep spindles and rapid eye movements have been found to increase following an intense period of learning on a combination of procedural memory tasks. It is not clear whether these changes are task specific, or the result of learning in general. The current study investigated changes in spindles, rapid eye movements, K-complexes and EEG spectral power following learning in good sleepers randomly assigned to one of four learning conditions: Pursuit Rotor (n=9), Mirror Tracing (n=9), Paired Associates (n=9), and non-learning controls (n=9).

Habitual napping moderates motor performance improvements following a short daytime nap.

The effect of napping on motor performance was examined in habitual and non-habitual nappers who were randomly assigned to a nap or reading condition. Motor procedural learning and auditory discrimination tasks were administered pre- and post-condition. Both groups reported improved alertness post-nap, but not post-reading.

Frontal electroencephalogram alpha asymmetry during sleep: stability and its relation to affective style.

Electroencephalogram (EEG) alpha (8-12 Hz) asymmetries were collected from the mid-frontal and central regions during presleep wakefulness and Stage 1, Stage 2, and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep in 11 healthy right-handed participants who were free of psychiatric, neurological, and sleep problems. The authors found significant correlations between presleep wakefulness and different stages of sleep in the frontal, but not central, EEG alpha asymmetry measure. The strongest correlation was between presleep waking and REM sleep, replicating and extending relation earlier work to a normal population.

Waking quantitative electroencephalogram and auditory event-related potentials following experimentally induced sleep fragmentation.

Study Objectives: Experimental sleep fragmentation involves inducing arousals by administering intrusive auditory stimuli throughout the night. It is intended to model the frequent and periodic disruption experienced in common sleep disorders. Sleep fragmentation leads to daytime sleepiness, although evidence of performance impairment has been inconsistent.