Sleep and Emotional Functioning in Childhood: Neural Correlates and Psychological Outcomes Open Access
Reidy, Brooke (Summer 2018)
Abstract
A growing body of literature implicates sleep as an influential factor in child mental health. Childhood sleep problems can persist for years and have been shown to predict the incidence of various forms of psychopathology, including anxiety disorders and depression. Mood and anxiety disorders are characterized by increased emotional responsivity and disrupted emotional regulation, processes that have also been linked to reduced childhood sleep duration at a behavioral and neurobiological level. Emotion responsivity / regulation may therefore represent an underlying mechanism in the sleep – mental health relationship. That said, much remains to be learned about associations between neural correlates of emotional responsivity/regulation and other, more objective measures of childhood sleep behavior. Research is also needed to more broadly understand the role of sleep as a mental health risk process, particularly for vulnerable populations of children. Study 1 examined persistent childhood sleep problems as a novel risk mechanism involved in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety. Results demonstrated that persistent childhood sleep problems mediated the association between maternal and child anxiety in the school-aged period. Study 2 explored the underlying neural mechanisms linking actigraphy-assessed sleep duration and fMRI measures of child emotional functioning in a school-aged sample. Exploratory analyses comparing fMRI output with actigraphy and/or maternal report measures of sleep quality and variability of sleep duration were also conducted. Results provided limited evidence linking childhood sleep problems and neural activation measures of emotion responsivity / regulation, but suggested that more persistent sleep problems may be more robust in terms of their associations with fMRI measures of emotional functioning in healthy children. Clinically, more persistent childhood sleep difficulties may also represent an important health intervention target for children at familial high risk for anxiety.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Dissertation General Introduction……………………………………………1
References…………………………………………………………………………..8
Chapter Two: Persistent sleep disturbance as an early risk mechanism underlying the maternal intergenerational transmission of anxiety…………………………………………14
Introduction………………………………………..……………………………....16
Methods…………………………………...……………………………………….21
Results……………………………………………………………………………. 27
Discussion…………………………………………………………………………30
References…………………………………………………………………………34
Tables…………….………………………………...…………………………….. 44
Figures………………….……………………...…………………………………. 47
Chapter Three: Associations Between Childhood Sleep and Neural Correlates of Emotion Responsivity and Regulation………………………………………………………49
Introduction………………………….......……………………………………….. 51
Methods……………………………………………………………………………57
Results……………………………………………………………………………..64
Discussion………………………………………………………………………....66
References…………………………………………………………...…………… 69
Tables………………….…………………………………………………………..79
Figures………………………..……………………………………...…………… 81
General Discussion …………………………………………………………………..…...84
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………88
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