A two-year follow-up investigation of parenting and peer influences on tobacco use onset among Italian early adolescents

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of peer and family influences on tobacco use onset among Italian early adolescents at two-year follow-up. Participants were 161 adolescents aged 11 to 12 (M = 11.14, SD = 0.39; 49% female) living in the northwest of Italy. Multiple logistic regressions were used. Results indicated that increases in positive family climate were negatively associated with lifetime smoking among non-smokers at two-year follow-up. Additionally, parental knowledge of child daily activities decreased lifetime smoking at two-year follow-up. Moderation analyses revealed that parental knowledge reduced the effect of peers' influence on youth smoking onset at two-year follow-up. This study underlined the influence of parenting practices in preventing early smoking initiation in Italy.     

What subjective experiences determine the perception of falling asleep during sleep onset period?

Sleep onset is associated with marked changes in behavioral, physiological, and subjective phenomena. In daily life though subjective experience is the main criterion in terms of which we identify it. But very few studies have focused on these experiences. This study seeks to identify the subjective variables that reflect sleep onset. Twenty young subjects took an afternoon nap in the laboratory while polysomnographic recordings were made. They were awakened four times in order to assess subjective experiences that correlate with the (1) appearance of slow eye movement, (2) initiation of stage 1 sleep, (3) initiation of stage 2 sleep, and (4) 5 min after the start of stage 2 sleep. A logistic regression identified control over and logic of thought as the two variables that predict the perception of having fallen asleep. For sleep perception, these two variables accurately classified 91.7% of the cases; for the waking state, 84.1%.     

The relationship between sleep and working memory in children with neurological conditions

The objective of this study is to investigate whether sleep problems might account for the increased working memory deficits observed in school-aged children with neurological conditions. A novel, transdiagnostic approach to the investigation was chosen, and sleep is treated as a process that can potentially account for working memory difficulties across a range of neurological conditions. Prevalence estimates of sleep problems are also examined. Archival data of 237 children aged 6 to 11 years were collected from a Western Australian statewide neuropsychological service for the period 26 July 2011 to 14 January 2014. Measures of parent-reported sleep quality, snoring, and daytime sleepiness were obtained, in addition to objective measures of verbal and spatial working memory, storage capacity, and processing speed. The results of the data analysis reveal that over one third of participants reported having clinically-significant levels of sleep problems and that poor sleep quality is significantly associated with verbal working memory difficulties. This association remains after partialling out the variance contributed to performance by storage capacity and processing speed, suggesting that sleep is impacting upon an executive component of working memory. No other significant associations are observed. The results suggest that poor sleep quality is associated with an executive component of verbal (rather than spatial) working memory in children with neurological conditions. This has implications for the biological mechanisms thought to underlie the relationship between sleep and cognition in children. The results also demonstrate the clinical utility of a transdiagnostic approach when investigating sleep and cognition in children with neurological conditions.     

Circadian preference and perceived quality of the sleep/wake cycle in Italian high school students

We explored the relationship between circadian preference and perceived quality of the sleep/wake cycle in Italian high school students aged between 14 and 18 years. Three hundred and forty-five participants (299 females, 46 males) were administered the Morningness–Eveningness Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (MEQ-CA) and the Mini Sleep Questionnaire (MSQ) to determine circadian preference and subjective quality of the sleep/wake cycle, respectively. The MSQ includes two main factors: sleep and wake; lower scores on these two factors correspond to a poorer quality of sleep and wake. Evening-type adolescents scored significantly lower than morning types on the wake factor. No significant effect of circadian preference was observed regarding the sleep factor. Our results suggest that Eveningness preference is significantly and negatively related to the perceived quality of the wake factor of Italian high school students.     

Dispositional mindfulness,insomnia, sleep quality and dysfunctional sleep beliefs in post-treatment cancer patients

Dispositional mindfulness, or the tendency to be more mindful in daily life, has been associated with better psychological functioning and reduced overall distress. This study investigated the degree to which dispositional mindfulness was associated with sleep disturbances in cancer patients with insomnia. Further, we examined whether levels of mindfulness moderated the relationship between stress levels, mood disturbance, insomnia severity, sleep quality and dysfunctional sleep beliefs. Participants (N = 111) were adults who had been previously treated for cancer and currently met diagnostic criteria for insomnia. Higher levels of acting with awareness, non-judging and non-reacting were associated with better sleep and psychological outcomes. Despite these significant associations, mindfulness facets did not significantly moderate the relationship between stress, mood and sleep outcomes. This negative finding raises the possibility that increased mindfulness may not act directly to improve psychological outcomes, but rather through a series of other cognitive and affective changes. Our results emphasize the importance of addressing mood symptoms and stress appraisals as predictors of sleep disturbance in cancer patients.     

Identification of emotional expressiveness in facial photographs over 36 h of extended vigilance in healthy young men—a preliminary study

Changes in sleep patterns negatively influence some emotional responses, but their effects on facial expressiveness identification are unclear. To investigate these effects, 21 young, healthy, male volunteers of intermediate chronotype evaluated emotional expressiveness of faces depicting 6 basic emotions in 5 emotional gradients every 4?h over 36?h of continuous wakefulness. To measure attention and mood we used the Psychomotor Vigilance test and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Expanded, respectively. We found effects of emotional gradient for all types of emotions (100%?>?80%?>?60%?>?40%?>?20%) during all tested periods, with no indications of circadian effects. The only emotional rating to be affected was disgust, which was progressively blunted throughout the experiment. This effect did not parallel homeostatic and circadian changes in mood, alertness or attention. We conclude that identifying disgust on facial photographs is particularly sensitive to lack of sleep irrespective of sleep-induced changes in mood and attention in males.     

Cognitive and emotional processes during dreaming: a neuroimaging view

Dream is a state of consciousness characterized by internally-generated sensory, cognitive and emotional experiences occurring during sleep. Dream reports tend to be particularly abundant, with complex, emotional, and perceptually vivid experiences after awakenings from rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. This is why our current knowledge of the cerebral correlates of dreaming, mainly derives from studies of REM sleep. Neuroimaging results show that REM sleep is characterized by a specific pattern of regional brain activity. We demonstrate that this heterogeneous distribution of brain activity during sleep explains many typical features in dreams. Reciprocally, specific dream characteristics suggest the activation of selective brain regions during sleep. Such an integration of neuroimaging data of human sleep, mental imagery, and the content of dreams is critical for current models of dreaming; it also provides neurobiological support for an implication of sleep and dreaming in some important functions such as emotional regulation.