Dr. Alice Gregory's Projects

COGNITIVE PROCESSES ASSOCIATED WITH SLEEP DISTURBANCES IN YOUTH

Experiments have demonstrated that aspects of cognition (e.g. attentional bias) play a role in sleep problems in adults. Less is known about these associations in children and adolescents. Furthermore, information is limited with regards to factors that may moderate the links between cognitive style and sleep disturbances across development (e.g. puberty).This PhD proposal is to develop a research programme in order to further understand such issues. It is hoped that such research may be informative with regards to targeting future study aimed at the prevention of developing sleep problems.

INTEGRATING GENETIC, ENVIRONMENTAL AND COGNITIVE INFLUENCES ON SLEEP DISTURBANCES IN CHILDREN

Knowledge is slowly increasing with regards to genetic, environmental and cognitive influences on sleep disturbances in children. However, there is still much to be learned. This proposal is to further understand these influences by using data collected from a sample of twins aged 8 years old in order to answer questions such as: do genetic and environmental risks for sleep disturbances interact?; and to what extent do cognitive processes mediate genetic and environmental influences on sleep disturbances? There will also be an opportunity for the PhD student to develop his/ her own ideas and collect further data.

SLEEP AND ASSOCIATED DIFFICULTIES: GENETIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES ON LONGITUDINAL ASSOCIATIONS

Sleep problems are intertwined with a variety of other difficulties. For example, sleep problems have been found to predict the subsequent occurrence of depressive symptoms and can therefore be considered risk indicators of these later difficulties; and there is also some support for the converse association that depression predicts later sleep problems. Understanding longitudinal links between sleep problems and other difficulties is essential, as such information is potentially useful for informing early intervention and/ or prevention strategies. Indeed, knowing why someone with sleep problems is at increased risk for developing depression can illuminate approaches for intervening to stop the progression to more serious and enduring problems. Despite the importance of understanding longitudinal associations between sleep problems and other difficulties – such knowledge is limited. For this reason, this proposal is to examine the order of effects of sleep problems and symptoms of other difficulties and to disentangle genetic and environmental influences on longitudinal associations between sleep problems and other difficulties in a large sample of young-adult twins.

SPECIFYING NONSHARED ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES FOR SLEEP DISTURBANCES

Sleep is a topic of relevance to everyone. We spend approximately one third of our lives asleep, and often only consider the importance of sleep when it becomes disturbed. Despite the importance of sleep, our understanding of risk factors for sleep disturbance is limited.
Our team has recently obtained data from a large twin study in order to further understand genetic and environmental influences on sleep disturbances. Data from this study suggest that nonshared environmental influences (i.e. those environmental influences which make individuals within a family differ) are particularly important.
The PhD student will conduct a thorough assessment of risk factors associated with sleep disturbance by means of in depth telephone interviews with identical twin pairs. Monozygotic twins are genetically identical, so studying this type of twin will allow us to identify environmental factors associated with sleep (where identical twins differ from one another with regards to sleep disturbance, we know that this is not because of genetic differences – so must be due to the environment).
This research has clear benefits. For example, knowing why sleep disturbance develops puts us in a stronger position from which to prevent this problem from occurring.