Sleep and wakefulness disorders impact 50 to 70 million Americans and insufficient sleep is epidemic with over 50% of Americans reporting less than 7 hours of sleep per night. Health problems associated with insufficient sleep include inflammation, depression and anxiety, diabetes, stress, drug abuse, poor quality of life, obesity, and fatigue related accidents on the job/while driving. While the contribution of sleep to overall health, well-being, and public safety is recognized, no established clinical biomarkers of sleep deficiency exist. Such biomarkers would have utility as road-side biomarkers of sleepiness (e.g., drowsy driving), monitoring on the job fatigue/fitness for duty (e.g., transportation, military ops health care), monitoring sleep health, as well as for clinical diagnostics and measures of clinical treatment outcomes. Thus, investigators designed a controlled laboratory insufficient sleep protocol utilizing metabolomics to identify biomarkers of insufficient sleep. Investigators propose to identify changes in metabolites that consistently occur during insufficient sleep. As an exploratory outcome investigators will examine associated changes in metabolites and cognitive performance during insufficient sleep.
Impaired sleep affects millions of people each year representing an important public health issue. This project will utilize metabolomics approaches to identify biomarkers in the blood that respond consistently to insufficient sleep. The overall goal of this project is to use a discovery and targeted approach to identify specific small molecules in plasma as candidate biomarkers of insufficient sleep. Investigators will conduct a controlled in-laboratory insufficient sleep protocol where participants receive 2 days of 5 hour sleep opportunities per night on 2 separate occasions. Plasma will be collected for metabolomics analyses every 2 hours (across 24 hours) during scheduled wakefulness at baseline and during insufficient sleep. Participants will complete the insufficient sleep protocol twice, separated by 23 days of sufficient sleep, to identify which plasma metabolites consistently change during insufficient sleep. Investigators anticipate these findings will be the first step in establishing validated biomarkers of impaired sleep that will advance our understanding, assessment and management of health consequences and symptoms associated with insufficient sleep.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
12
2 days with 5 hour sleep opportunity per day
Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory
Boulder, Colorado, United States
Plasma Metabolomics Biomarker Fingerprint
Investigators can detect \~4,000 plasma metabolites and will identify which metabolites have consistent, sensitive, and specific responses to insufficient sleep across visits one and two. These metabolites will be identified as candidate biomarkers of insufficient sleep.
Time frame: Plasma will be collected for metabolomics analyses every 2 hours during scheduled wakefulness at baseline and during the final 24 hours of insufficient sleep for both visits one and two
Psychomotor Vigilance Test
The Psychomotor Vigilance Test is a reaction time based test designed to evaluate the ability to sustain attention.
Time frame: Participants will complete the psychomotor vigilance test every 3 hours during scheduled wakefulness across baseline and insufficient sleep for visits one and two
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