The coupling of short sleep duration and high sleep need predicts riskier decision making

Abstract

Objective: To examine how risk-related decision making might be associated with habitual sleep variables, including sleep variability, sleep duration and perceived sleep need in young adults cross-sectionally and longitudinally.

Design: 166 participants completed a 7-day protocol with sleep and risk-related decision-making measures at baseline (T1) and 12 months later (T2).

Results: Habitual short sleep duration (averaging < 6?h nightly) was identified in 11.0% in our sample. After controlling for baseline demographic factors and risk-taking measures, self-reported sleep need at T1 interacted with habitual short sleep in predicting risk taking at follow-up (F_8,139=9.575, adjusted R²=.431, p<.001). T1 greater perceived sleep need predicted more risk taking among short sleepers, but decreased risk taking among normal sleepers at T2. Variable sleep timing was cross-sectionally correlated with making more Risky choices at baseline and fewer Safe choices after loss at follow up.

Conclusions: Young adults with variable sleep timing and those with short sleep duration coupled with high perceived sleep need were more likely to take risks. The moderating effects of perceived sleep need suggest that individual differences may alter the impact of sleep loss and hence should be measured and accounted for in future studies.     

Sleep hygiene behaviours: An application of the theory of planned behaviour and the investigation of perceived autonomy support,past behaviour and response inhibition

This study investigated the sleep hygiene behaviour of university students within the framework of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB [Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179–211.]), and examined the predictive validity of additional variables including perceived autonomy support, past behaviour and response inhibition. A total of 257 undergraduate students from an Australian university were administered two online questionnaires at two time points. At time 1, participants completed the TPB questionnaire and the Go/NoGo task as a measure of response inhibition. A week later at time 2, participants completed a questionnaire measuring the performance of sleep hygiene behaviours. Multiple and hierarchical regression analyses showed that the TPB model significantly predicted intention and behaviour. Although intention and perceived behavioural control were statistically significant in predicting behaviour, past behaviour and response inhibition accounted for more variance when added to the TPB model. Subjective norm was found to be the strongest predictor of intention implying the importance of normative influences in sleep hygiene behaviours. Response inhibition was the strongest predictor of behaviour, reinforcing the argument that the performance of health protective behaviours requires self-regulatory ability. Therefore, interventions should be targeted at enhancing self-regulatory capacity.     

Alcohol use affects sleep duration among military couples

Alcohol misuse and sleep disorders are highly comorbid, prevalent among service members and their romantic partners, and affected by relationship interdependence. As most military health research focuses on either service members or their spouses, the current study examined dyadic effects of alcohol use on sleep cycle duration in dating and married military couples (N = 149 dyads), using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Person-level results from a series of multilevel path models showed partial support for our focal hypothesis implicating high alcohol use in shortened average sleep duration for the service members and their romantic partners. Specifically, partners of service members who drank more regularly had shorter average sleep durations, as did female service members who drank more alcohol per drinking occasion. At the couple-level, a partner effect indicated that service members’ lower depressive symptoms were associated with their partner’s shorter average sleep durations. In addition, when service members reported relatively high alcohol-related problems, their partner tended to have a shorter average sleep duration. In contrast, when service members’ partners reported relatively high alcohol-related problems, they had a longer average sleep duration. This suggests the consequences of problematic alcohol use for service members’ partners depended on each dyad member’s drinking patterns. Taken together, these findings underscore the importance of viewing military couples as a dyadic unit in research studies and clinical interventions.     

Sleep Disturbances Among Combat Military Veterans: A Comparative Study Using Subjective and Objective Sleep Assessments

The sleep characteristics of 37 military veterans and active-duty service members (17 with PTSD and 20 without PTSD) of recent wars were analyzed to determine if combat deployment, with its associated sleep restriction, may be an alternative explanation for the sleep complaints found among combat veterans with PTSD (as determined by PTSD Checklist Military Version scores). Over a 1-week period, sleep data were collected using sleep actigraphy and self-report. Across the entire sample, subjective and objective assessment methods of sleep were strongly correlated, although there were some notable within-group differences. Specifically, although sleep duration between groups did not differ based on actigraphy, veterans without PTSD reported sleeping 1 h and 11 min (p = .002) longer than did veterans with PTSD. In an effort to determine why individuals without PTSD might be overreporting sleep, we found that symptoms of emotional arousal (anger, anxiety, and nightmares) were significantly correlated with self-reported sleep duration, suggesting a pattern of higher autonomic arousal found in veterans with PTSD. Thus, although sleeping for 6 h, the higher levels of emotional arousal reported by veterans with PTSD may mean that they do not perceive their sleep as restful. Further research is necessary to determine if the sleep architecture of veterans with PTSD is actually different from that of combat veterans without PTSD and if such differences are actually amenable to standard behavioral treatments for this disorder.     

阻塞性睡眠呼吸暂停低通气综合征与冠状动脉支架再狭窄关系的研究

探讨冠状动脉内支架再狭窄与阻塞性睡眠呼吸暂停低通气综合征（OSAHS）的关系及其机制.选择冠状动脉支架植入术后患者172例,其中43例确诊患OSAHS者为研究组,129例无OSAHS的患者为对照组.支架术后第3年行冠状动脉造影术,同时检测患者静脉血中TNF-α、IL-6、IL-4、IL-5、IL-10水平.OSAHS患者7例发生支架内再狭窄,比率16.26%,明显高于对照组6例,比率5.67%（P〈0.01）;OSAHS患者血清中TNF-α、IL-6浓度高于对照组（P〈0.01）;IL-4、IL-5、IL-10水平低于对照组（P〈0.01）.合并OSAHS的患者,支架再狭窄的发生率高于非OSAHS患者,而OSAHS引发的炎症介质水平改变及炎症反应失衡可能与支架再狭窄有关.     

Cognition and Emotion,Volume 24, 2010, List of Reviewers

The tendency for anxious individuals to selectively attend to threatening information is believed to cause and exacerbate anxious emotional responding in a self-perpetuating cycle. The present study sought to examine the relation between differential interoceptive conditioning (IC) using carbon dioxide inhalation as a panicogenic unconditioned stimulus (US) and the development of Stroop colour-naming interference to various non-word conditioned stimuli (CSs). Healthy university students (N = 27) underwent the assessment of colour-naming interference to reinforced CS+ and non-reinforced CS? non-words prior to and following differential fear conditioning. Participants showed greater magnitude electrodermal and verbal-evaluative responses to the CS+ over the CS? non-word following IC, and demonstrated the expected slower colour-naming latencies to the CS+ compared to the CS? non-word from baseline to post-conditioning. We discuss the relation between fear learning and the emergence of attentional bias for threat to further understand the maintenance of anxiety disorders.     

Morality‐ and identity‐related antecedents of children's guilt and shame attributions in events involving physical illness

It is theorised that guilt‐ and shame‐related appraisals vary on two separate dimensions. Guilt implies an appraisal that one has either committed a moral transgression or that one has otherwise been involved in the creation of a morally wrong outcome. Shame implies one's appraisal that the current event or condition reflects negatively on one's identity. To test these claims, 206 7‐ to 16‐year‐old children gave shame and guilt ratings of three types of events that were drawn from the domain of physical illness and that were designed to elicit primarily guilt, primarily shame, or both emotions. The 12‐year‐olds and older children's ratings were fully consistent with our hypothesis. Younger children's greatest difficulty was in not attributing shame to protagonists who were involved in causing a moral wrong without there being the threat of an unwanted identity.     

Effectiveness of parent counselling in eating disorders

ABSTRACT

Eating Disorders (ED) are often severe illnesses entailing a heavy burden for families. Family therapy is recommended for young patients, but only a few studies have investigated therapeutic interventions with families tailored also to adult and longstanding patients. We recruited 87 families with daughters affected by an ED, aiming to assess the effectiveness of eight sessions of parent counselling. The primary outcome was the improvement of parents' coping abilities to achieve more effective support skills. Before treatment, 54% of parents showed poor coping resources whereas 43.7% of the sample improved after parent counselling. Parents with good coping resources responded significantly better to this treatment. Although future research is warranted, these preliminary findings support the effectiveness of parent counselling in ED.     

Initial Psychometric Properties of a Brief Parent-Report Instrument for Assessing Tic Severity in Children with Chronic Tic Disorders

This article describes the development and initial psychometric properties of the Parent Tic Questionnaire (PTQ)—a new measure assessing the number, frequency, and intensity of motor and vocal tics in children and adolescents with Chronic Tic Disorder (CTD). Parents of 40 children with a CTD completed the PTQ as part of a larger assessment battery. Results show the PTQ to have excellent internal consistency and good to excellent 2-week test-retest reliability. The motor tic severity subscale, vocal tic severity subscale, and total severity score of the PTQ correlated highly with the corresponding scales of the gold-standard clinician-rated Yale Global Tic Severity Scale (YGTSS), indicating excellent convergent validity. Correlations between the YGTSS and PTQ remained strong after controlling for measures of obsessive-compulsive disorder and inattention, suggesting good discriminant validity. The PTQ is a promising supplement to current methods for assessing tic severity and further research on the validity, reliability, and clinical utility of the scale are warranted.     

Co-occurrence of non-suicidal self-injury and impulsivity in extreme weight conditions

The aims of the present study were to determine the prevalence of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in different eating disorder (ED) groups and morbid obesity, and to investigate whether NSSI in different ED/obesity groups co-occur with impulsivity. We assessed 535 individuals (365 ED and 170 obese patients) by means of a single item assessing lifetime NSSI and the Barratt Impulsivity Scale, which measures different dimensions of impulsivity. The results showed that 19.1% of the ED patients engaged in at least one act of NSSI during their life-time. NSSI was more prevalent in Bulimia Nervosa, Binge Eating Disorder, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified compared to Anorexia Nervosa, Restrictive type and morbid obesity. Finally, ED/obese patients who engaged in NSSI scored significantly higher on the attentional, motor and non-planning subscales than patients without NSSI. The implications of these findings for the treatment of NSSI in binge/purging ED patients are discussed.