Efficacy study comparing a CBT-I developed for shift workers (CBT-I-S) to standard CBT-I (cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia) on sleep onset latency, total sleep time, subjective sleep quality, and daytime sleepiness: study protocol for a parallel group randomised controlled trial with online therapy groups of seven sessions each.

Background: Shift workers are at an increased risk of developing sleep disorders. The standard therapy recommended for sleep disorders is cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). Many of its interventions are based on a regular sleep and wake rhythm, which is difficult to apply for shift workers.

Explaining post-traumatic stress symptoms and sleep disturbance in Ukrainian civilians: perceived threat versus objective war exposure.

This study investigated the impact of war exposure on post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and sleep disturbance across Ukraine. Subjective and objective indicators of war exposure were modelled as predictors of these symptoms. We created two predictors: first, we used governmental and crowd-sourced data to create an objective war exposure index for each of the 21 non-occupied regions of Ukraine, based on the number of air raid alarms, explosions, and proximity to frontline; and second, we obtained self-report cross-sectional data, using convenience sampling, from a nation-wide survey ( = 991) on subjective experience of threat triggered by the war.

Investigating the subjective and objective efficacy of a cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I)-based smartphone app on sleep: A randomised controlled trial.

Due to insufficient treatment options for insomnia, effective solutions are urgently needed. We evaluated the effects of a CBT-I-based app combining sleep training with subjective and objective sleep monitoring on (i) sleep and (ii) subjective-objective sleep discrepancies (SOSD). Fifty-seven volunteers (20-76 years; M = 45.

Psychological characteristics of the relationship between mental health and hardiness of Ukrainians during the war.

Objectives: The aim of our survey is to identify psychological features for the relationship between mental health and hardiness of Ukrainians during the war.

Methods: The study involved 608 Ukrainians. We aimed to identify the relationship between mental health and hardiness and determine the differences in the peculiarities of mental health of people with different levels of hardiness.

The European Insomnia Guideline: An update on the diagnosis and treatment of insomnia 2023.

Progress in the field of insomnia since 2017 necessitated this update of the European Insomnia Guideline. Recommendations for the diagnostic procedure for insomnia and its comorbidities are: clinical interview (encompassing sleep and medical history); the use of sleep questionnaires and diaries (and physical examination and additional measures where indicated) (A). Actigraphy is not recommended for the routine evaluation of insomnia (C), but may be useful for differential-diagnostic purposes (A).

From Pulses to Sleep Stages: Towards Optimized Sleep Classification Using Heart-Rate Variability.

More and more people quantify their sleep using wearables and are becoming obsessed in their pursuit of optimal sleep ("orthosomnia"). However, it is criticized that many of these wearables are giving inaccurate feedback and can even lead to negative daytime consequences. Acknowledging these facts, we here optimize our previously suggested sleep classification procedure in a new sample of 136 self-reported poor sleepers to minimize erroneous classification during ambulatory sleep sensing.

A low-threshold sleep intervention for improving sleep quality and well-being.

Background: Approximately one-third of the healthy population suffer from sleep problems, but only a small proportion of those affected receive professional help. Therefore, there is an urgent need for easily accessible, affordable, and efficacious sleep interventions.

Objective: A randomized controlled study was conducted to investigate the efficacy of a low-threshold sleep intervention consisting of either (i) sleep data feedback plus sleep education or (ii) sleep data feedback alone in comparison with (iii) no intervention.

The Virtual Sleep Lab-A Novel Method for Accurate Four-Class Sleep Staging Using Heart-Rate Variability from Low-Cost Wearables.

Sleep staging based on polysomnography (PSG) performed by human experts is the de facto "gold standard" for the objective measurement of sleep. PSG and manual sleep staging is, however, personnel-intensive and time-consuming and it is thus impractical to monitor a person's sleep architecture over extended periods. Here, we present a novel, low-cost, automatized, deep learning alternative to PSG sleep staging that provides a reliable epoch-by-epoch four-class sleep staging approach (Wake, Light [N1 + N2], Deep, REM) based solely on inter-beat-interval (IBI) data.

Burdens and psychosocial consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for Austrian children and adolescents.

Objectives: The negative psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are becoming increasingly apparent. Children and adolescents in particular, were affected and torn away from their daily life routines. The aim of our survey is to evaluate the psychosocial burden and impairments of children and adolescents in Austria during the COVID-19 pandemic by using cross-sectional analysis.

Self-reported changes in sleep patterns and behavior in children and adolescents during COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns worldwide forced children and adolescents to change and adapt their lives to an unprecedented situation. Using an online survey, we investigated whether they showed changes in sleep quality and other related factors due to this event. Between February 21st, 2021 and April 19th, 2021, a total of 2,290 Austrian children and adolescents (6-18 years) reported their sleep habits and quality of sleep as well as physical activity, daylight exposure and usage of media devices during and, retrospectively, before the pandemic.

Imagetic and affective measures of memory reverberation diverge at sleep onset in association with theta rhythm.

The 'day residue' - the presence of waking memories into dreams - is a century-old concept that remains controversial in neuroscience. Even at the psychological level, it remains unclear how waking imagery cedes into dreams. Are visual and affective residues enhanced, modified, or erased at sleep onset? Are they linked, or dissociated? What are the neural correlates of these transformations? To address these questions we combined quantitative semantics, sleep EEG markers, visual stimulation, and multiple awakenings to investigate visual and affect residues in hypnagogic imagery at sleep onset.

The coronavirus pandemic: Psychosocial burden, risk-perception, and attitudes in the Austrian population and its relation to media consumption.

Objective: The aim was to assess the psychosocial burden, risk-perception and attitudes regarding the coronavirus pandemic among the Austrian population after the second infection wave in Austria.

Methods: A self-designed questionnaire was available online from 17th January to 19th February 2021. Knowledge, attitudes, fears, and psychosocial burdens were collected in a comprehensive convenience sample of 3,848 adults from the Austrian general population.

Sleep-Specific Processing of Auditory Stimuli Is Reflected by Alpha and Sigma Oscillations.

Recent research revealed a surprisingly large range of cognitive operations to be preserved during sleep in humans. The new challenge is therefore to understand functions and mechanisms of processes, which so far have been mainly investigated in awake subjects. The current study focuses on dynamic changes of brain oscillations and connectivity patterns in response to environmental stimulation during non-REM sleep.

Does the Heart Fall Asleep?-Diurnal Variations in Heart Rate Variability in Patients with Disorders of Consciousness.

The current study investigated heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) across day and night in patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC). We recorded 24-h electrocardiography in 26 patients with DOC (i.e.

From dawn to dusk-mimicking natural daylight exposure improves circadian rhythm entrainment in patients with severe brain injury.

Study Objectives: While light therapy has proven effective in re-entraining circadian rhythms, the potential of such an intervention has not been evaluated systematically in post-comatose patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC), who often have strongly altered circadian rhythms.

Methods: We recorded skin temperature over 7-8 days in patients with DOC in each of two conditions: habitual light (HL), and dynamic daylight (DDL) condition. While patients were in a room with usual clinic lighting in the HL condition, they were in an otherwise comparable room with biodynamic lighting (i.

Slow oscillation-spindle coupling strength predicts real-life gross-motor learning in adolescents and adults.

Previously, we demonstrated that precise temporal coordination between slow oscillations (SOs) and sleep spindles indexes declarative memory network development (Hahn et al., 2020). However, it is unclear whether these findings in the declarative memory domain also apply in the motor memory domain.

The Brain Selectively Tunes to Unfamiliar Voices during Sleep.

The brain continues to respond selectively to environmental stimuli during sleep. However, the functional role of such responses, and whether they reflect information processing or rather sensory inhibition, is not fully understood. Here, we present 17 human sleepers (14 females) with their own name and two unfamiliar first names, spoken by either a familiar voice (FV) or an unfamiliar voice (UFV), while recording polysomnography during a full night of sleep.

["Now You're Talking!"].

The survey "Jetzt Sprichst Du!" ("Now you're talking!") impressively demonstrates the psychosocial burden and impairments of children and adolescents in Austria during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As part of an online questionnaire, 5483 children and adolescents between 6 and 18 years of age were asked about their feelings, fears, worries, and assessments regarding the coronavirus pandemic. As can be seen, children and adolescents are worried about the situation, and girls are more burdened by this across all age groups.

Evaluation of a Low-Cost Commercial Actigraph and Its Potential Use in Detecting Cultural Variations in Physical Activity and Sleep.

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the performance of a low-cost commercial smartwatch, the Xiaomi Mi Band (MB), in extracting physical activity and sleep-related measures and show its potential use in addressing questions that require large-scale real-time data and/or intercultural data including low-income countries. We evaluated physical activity and sleep-related measures and discussed the potential application of such devices for large-scale step and sleep data acquisition. To that end, we conducted two separate studies.

Decoding Brain Responses to Names and Voices across Different Vigilance States.

Past research has demonstrated differential responses of the brain during sleep in response especially to variations in paralinguistic properties of auditory stimuli, suggesting they can still be processed "offline". However, the nature of the underlying mechanisms remains unclear. Here, we therefore used multivariate pattern analyses to directly test the similarities in brain activity among different sleep stages (non-rapid eye movement stages N1-N3, as well as rapid-eye movement sleep REM, and wake).

Sleep during COVID-19 lockdown: A cross-cultural study investigating job system relevance.

Our study aimed to assess the change in the sleep patterns during the Coronavirus lockdown in five regions (Austria/Germany, Ukraine, Greece, Cuba and Brazil), using online surveys, translated in each language. Part of the cohort (age 25-65, well-educated) was collected directly during lockdown, to which retrospective cross-sectional data from and after lockdown (retrospective) questionnaires were added. We investigated sleep times and sleep quality changes from before to during lockdown and found that, during lockdown, participants had (i) worse perceived sleep quality if worried by COVID-19, (ii) a shift of bedtimes to later hours during workdays, and (iii) a sleep loss on free days (resulting from more overall sleep during workdays in non-system relevant jobs), leading to (iv) a marked reduction of social jetlag across all cultures.

Memory Traces Formed in Utero-Newborns' Autonomic and Neuronal Responses to Prenatal Stimuli and the Maternal Voice.

In our pilot study, we exposed third-trimester fetuses, from week 34 of gestation onwards, twice daily to a maternal spoken nursery rhyme. Two and five weeks after birth, 34 newborns, who were either familiarized with rhyme stimulation in utero or stimulation naïve, were (re-)exposed to the familiar, as well as to a novel and unfamiliar, rhyme, both spoken with the maternal and an unfamiliar female voice. For the stimulation-naïve group, both rhymes were unfamiliar.

Perspective: Daylight Saving Time-An Advocacy for a Balanced View and against Fanning Fear.

As experts, scientists must inform the public and political actors about relevant topics by providing a well-balanced analysis and overview of as well as scientific evidence. Particularly in cases where evidence is not solid, they must remain objective and not fan fear. Maintaining good scientific practice can be challenging, especially when a debate is emotionally charged and simple answers for complex issues are demanded.