Digital Commons Network^™

The Shifting Landscape Of Adolescent Wellness In Boarding Schools: Can Time Spent Off Screens And Outdoors Improve Adolescent Wellbeing?, Kristen H. Peterson

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

For nearly twenty years I have worked directly with adolescents as an independent school educator. Whether in the classroom, on the field, or in the dorm, I have observed and supported students through their middle and high school experiences. During this time, I have witnessed an alarming shift in adolescent physical, emotional, and social wellbeing. Concurrently, I have observed a dramatic increase in the amount of time students spend using screen-based devices, and a decrease in their time spent outdoors.

Using research to ground my anecdotal accounts in empirical understanding, my thesis examines whether or not screen use might help …

The Impact Of Service Dogs On Objective And Perceived Sleep Quality For Veterans With Ptsd, Madhuri Vempati, Elise A. Miller, Sarah C. Leighton, Leanne O. Nieforth, Marguerite O’Haire

Discovery Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Internship

One in four post-9/11 veterans (Fulton et al., 2015) have been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), facing sleep disruptions as one of their most common symptoms. Service dogs have become an increasingly popular complementary intervention and anecdotes suggest they may impact sleep for veterans with PTSD. There is a need for empirical investigation into these claims through measurement and analysis of sleep quality.

The purpose of this study was to longitudinally investigate the impact of service dogs on sleep quality through both objective and subjective measures.

Participants in the treatment group (n=92) received a service dog after baseline, while …

Bright Light Treatment Of Combat-Related Ptsd: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Shawn D. Youngstedt, Christopher E. Kline, Alexandria Reynolds, Shannon K. Crowley, James B. Burch Ph.D., Nidha Khan, Seungyong Han

Faculty Publications

Introduction

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a prevalent consequence of combat with significant associated morbidity. Available treatments for PTSD have had limitations, suggesting a need to explore alternative or adjuvant treatments. Numerous rationales for bright light treatment of PTSD include its benefits for common PTSD comorbidities of depression, anxiety, and circadian misalignment and its relative ease of use with few side effects. The primary aims of this research were to examine the effects of bright light treatment for combat-related PTSD and associated morbidity. Materials and Methods

A randomized controlled trial was performed in N = 69 veterans with PTSD attributable …

Inflammatory Response To Sleep Fragmentation In Skeletal, Cardiac, And Smooth Muscle Tissues In Female Mice, Patton Allen

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Sleep is a critical process that the body undergoes. When sleep is interrupted, so that an individual is awakened for some period before going back into sleep, the sleep can be described as fragmented. Studies in the past have shown that sleep fragmentation (SF) promotes an inflammatory environment, especially in the brain and peripheral tissue. However, studies have not been conducted to observe inflammatory responses in muscle. To examine this, C57BL/6J female mice were subjected to either a control group (no SF) or a SF group which involved using an automated SF chamber to disrupt sleep every 2 min over …

Human Fatigue Predictions In Complex Aviation Crew Operational Impact Conditions, Suresh Rangan

Doctoral Dissertations

In this last decade, several regulatory frameworks across the world in all modes of transportation had brought fatigue and its risk management in operations to the forefront. Of all transportation modes air travel has been the safest means of transportation. Still as part of continuous improvement efforts, regulators are insisting the operators to adopt strong fatigue science and its foundational principles to reinforce safety risk assessment and management. Fatigue risk management is a data driven system that finds a realistic balance between safety and productivity in an organization. This work discusses the effects of mathematical modeling of fatigue and its …

Time-Varying Insomnia Symptoms And Incidence Of Cognitive Impairment And Dementia Among Older Us Adults, Nicholas V. Resciniti, Valerie Yelverton, Bezawit Eyob Kase, Jiajia Zhang, Matthew C. Lohman

Faculty Publications

There is conflicting evidence regarding the association between insomnia and the onset of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia. This study aimed to evaluate if time-varying insomnia is associated with the development of MCI and dementia. Data from the Health and Retirement Study (n = 13,833) from 2002 to 2014 were used (59.4% female). The Brief Insomnia Questionnaire was used to identify insomnia symptoms which were compiled in an insomnia severity index, ranging from 0 to 4. In analysis, participants’ symptoms could vary from wave-to-wave. Dementia was defined using results from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) global cognitive …

Age-Related Losses In Cardiac Autonomic Activity During A Daytime Nap, Pin-Chun Chen, Negin Sattari, Lauren N. Whitehurst, Sara C. Mednick

Psychology Faculty Publications

In healthy, young individuals, a reduction in cardiovascular output and a shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic (vagal) dominance is observed from wake into stages of nocturnal and daytime sleep. This cardiac autonomic profile, measured by heart rate variability (HRV), has been associated with significant benefits for cardiovascular health. Aging is associated with decreased nighttime sleep quality and lower parasympathetic activity during both sleep and resting. However, it is not known whether age-related dampening of HRV extends to daytime sleep, diminishing the cardiovascular benefits of naps in the elderly. Here, we investigated this question by comparing the autonomic activity profile between …

A Computational Study Of Sleep And The Hemispheres Of The Brain, Tera Ashley Glaze

Dissertations

Sleep and sleep cycles have been studied for over a century, and scientists have worked on modeling sleep for nearly as long as computers have existed. Despite this extensive study, sleep still holds many mysteries. Larger and more extensive sleep-wake models have been developed, and the circadian drive has been depicted in numerous fashions, as well as incorporated into scores of studies. With the ever-growing knowledge of sleep comes the need to find more ways to examine, quantify, and define it in the context of the most complex part of the human anatomy – the brain. Presented here is the …

A Computational Study Of Sleep And The Hemispheres Of The Brain, Tera Ashley Glaze

Doctoral Dissertations

"Sleep and sleep cycles have been studied for over a century, and scientists have worked on modeling sleep for nearly as long as computers have existed. Despite this extensive study, sleep still holds many mysteries. Larger and more extensive sleep-wake models have been developed, and the circadian drive has been depicted in numerous fashions, as well as incorporated into scores of studies. With the ever-growing knowledge of sleep comes the need to find more ways to examine, quantify, and define it in the context of the most complex part of the human anatomy -- the brain. Presented here is the …

The Correlation Between Sleep And Lifespan In Drosophila Melanogaster, Joshua Randall Lisse

Masters Theses

”Adequate sleep is associated with an individual’s health. Too little sleep is associated with many health problems, including cardiovascular disease, obesity, and a general increase in all-cause mortality. Yet the molecular changes that link poor sleep and changes in health are still not well understood. Individuals have a unique daily need for sleep, and deviations from the animal’s regular sleeping patterns can be indicative of, or result in, underlying changes in its health. Therefore, we hypothesize that changes in the sleep architecture in Drosophila melanogaster reflect changes in the fly’s health.

We determined sleep architecture in wild-type male flies over …

Analyzing Sensor Based Human Activity Data Using Time Series Segmentation To Determine Sleep Duration, Yogesh Deepak Lad

Masters Theses

"Sleep is the most important thing to rest our brain and body. A lack of sleep has adverse effects on overall personal health and may lead to a variety of health disorders. According to Data from the Center for disease control and prevention in the United States of America, there is a formidable increase in the number of people suffering from sleep disorders like insomnia, sleep apnea, hypersomnia and many more. Sleep disorders can be avoided by assessing an individual's activity over a period of time to determine the sleep pattern and duration. The sleep pattern and duration can be …

Understanding Sleep In Pediatric Patients With Sickle Cell Disease Admitted For Vaso-Occlusive Pain Crisis Through Objective Data, Kalindi Narine, Fan Yang, Tanvi Banerjee, Jude Jonassaint, Nirmish Shah

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited red cell disorder that leads to sickling of red blood cells, anemia and vaso-occlusion. The most common reason for hospitalization and morbidity in children is pain due to vaso-occlusive crisis (VOC). Importantly, poor sleep quality can lead to increased pain the subsequent day and nocturnal pain leads to reduced deep sleep, both which can then modify pain sensitivity. Studies using sleep diaries have shown this cyclical relationship between sleep and pain. Frequent occurrences of restless sleep are therefore believed to contribute to an increased severity and intensity of pain episodes. There is very …

Modeling Sleep And Wake Bouts In Drosophila Melanogaster, Gayla R. Olbricht, V. A. Samaranayake, Sahitya Injamuri, Luyang Wang, Courtney Fiebelman, Matthew S. Thimgan

Conference on Applied Statistics in Agriculture

Adequate sleep restores vital processes required for health and well-being; but the function and regulation of sleep is not well understood. Unfortunately, a definition of adequate sleep is unclear. On an hours-long timescale, consolidated and cycling sleep results in better health and performance outcomes. At shorter timescales, older studies report conflicting results regarding the relationship between sleep and wake bout durations. One approach to this problem has been to simply analyze the distribution of bout durations. While informative, this method eliminates the time relationship between bouts, which may be important. Here, we develop a model that describes the relationship between …

Statistical Analysis Of Sleep Patterns In Drosophila Melanogaster, Luyang Wang

Masters Theses

“Sleep is one of the most preserved and restorative behaviors of animals and is important in human health. Lack of sleep may cause numerous diseases. So the study of sleep rhythms is very essential and complicated. In order to simplify the process of studying sleep, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, is utilized as a model organism for several reasons. Some of the molecular mechanisms that contribute to the circadian clock in the fruit fly were also found to generate similar cycles in mammals. In order to study sleep patterns in the fruit fly, experiments were designed and performed to …

A New Tool For Qt Interval Analysis During Sleep In Healthy And Obstructive Sleep Apnea Subjects: A Study On Women, Kemal Ali̇can Kaya, Bülent Yilmaz

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

By monitoring the Q wave/T wave (QT) interval computed from electrocardiography (ECG) signals during sleep, it is possible to create a link between the ventricular repolarization and sleep stages. In this study, we aimed to find a robust and simple approach to automatically determine the fiducials on each 30-s sleep epoch, such as the Q, R, and T-end points, on long sleep ECG recordings in order to statistically analyze the effect of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and sleep stages on QT intervals. This is a retrospective study in which the ECG data extracted from the polysomnography recordings of 7 healthy …

Dietary Patterns In Relation To Sleep And Stress In Cal Poly Freshman, Emily J. Conklin, Jongyoon Lee

Statistics

The Cal Poly FLASH study is a research project that was developed to assess overall health of college students. Beginning in Fall 2009, data have been collected longitudinally via online surveys and physical assessments on Cal Poly freshmen. Responses from 1520 students from Fall 2009 were used to investigate whether stress and sleeping habits are related to dietary patterns among Cal Poly students.

Factor analysis was used to categorize 33 food frequency variables into two categories – junk food and healthy food. Then, stepwise selection in a general linear model was conducted to identify lifestyle and demographic variables associated with …