Paula Shin

IR-2/11 AP
Leonie Maurer
Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Center
November 16, 2017

PS: So I saw that you are a student at the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute, is that
correct?

LM: Yep, yep.

PS: Could you tell me what you have done there and how it has impacted your research on sleep
dependent memory?

LM: Oh, okay. So my research has kind of changed. So i’m working at the sleep and circadian
neuroscience center for a year and I’m in the second year of my phd project, and my focus is
basically on insomnia, and we are interested in a therapy that we normally use for insomnia. That
is the sleep restriction therapy, and so sleep restriction therapy is basically a treatment where we
would have someone who has sleep problems and then we ask this person to have a sleep diary
for about two weeks, and then what normally happens is that people with insomnia are normally
tempted to spend a long time in bed, even though they are not sleeping, which we then think is
bad for their relationships and are bad sleep associations. So what we then do with sleep
restriction therapy is that they are only allowed to stay in bed as long as they actually can sleep.
So based on the last weeks of the sleep diary we (?) give them a new sleep window which is
normally really restricted so let’s say someone is sleeping 6 hours while being 8 hours in bed.
Then people said ok you are only allowed to be in bed for 6 hours, and then of course this would
reduce their sleep as well, and that is a typical treatment that is part of a cognitive treatment
normally, and we are interested in the mechanisms. So what i do is that i have the participants
coming in and jenn(?) giving them the treatment and then I follow up with them for the next four
weeks and (?) with memories basically to serve people with insomnia have memory complaints
and also just cognitive decline because they are not getting enough sleep and so then one of the
measurements that we do right now is that we ask for (?) and cognitive compliance basically and
we ask them what they suffered the most and normally what they say is in the beginning they
would say that there are several memory complaints, and concentration, motivation. And after
the treatment we basically ask them again how they experienced as to normally what they see
instead of treatment and they will get more sleep and having more sleep will help improve
cognitive complaints and those that are memory consolidation based, but in the study I’m doing
right now, we are not really looking at memory tasks. We have a second study that is starting
soon, and then we are actually using memory tasks before and after to see if treatment can
change or can improve memory.

PS: How can sleep restriction therapy alleviate the effects of sleep disorders?

LM: So far we only only focus on insomnia. So there’s a couple of mechanisms that are thought
to improve insomnia. So one thing is that we… the one thing especially the kind of..its about
sleep association so you think of if the restrictions(?) after the first days they start feeling so so
tired. So what we don't normally see is that people who get super super sleepy in the evening
they really struggle to stay awake until they actually are allowed to go to bed. So by being so
sleepy, which is basically the sleep drive or the sleepiness that is overcoming everything else. So
the sleepiness is overcoming their worries about sleep and their trouble about sleep. So the first
week is really really tough and terrible after the first week because they're just so tired. But then
the next couple of weeks we see that the sleep drive was basically pushing down and they
actually get more sleep. And that's like when things to set the sleepiness and you say because it's
a partial deprivation, it's just overcoming all the problems they have for falling asleep, staying
asleep, or waking up too early.

PS: So with the people participating in these studies, what kind of changes have you seen in their
cognitive abilities?

LM: So far I haven't seen too much because my study has only started in August so I think 10
people have been through the study now. We have a control group as well, so we have a placebo
control but normally nobody improves. That's already seen in other studies to complete and
prove. It's really interesting because it's not like in some, really it's a really difficult disease in the
way that everyone has a different experience of it. So some people actually don't even sleep
during that. So like some they have completely different areas where they think it's a big problem
for them so some of them actually might not have any memory complaints or any complaints
while others do. So it’s a bit difficult.

PS: So I read about the article that you wrote the one called a new face of sleep the impact of
both...It helped clarify the importance of sleep on recognition memory. But I'm confused about
the macrostructure of sleep. I was wondering what are the sleep stages that allow people to have
strong sleep dependent memories.

LM: Yes so normally there’s a lot of research done on memory and sleep and so what we
normally see is that depending on the memory task basically so what we normally see is if we a
recall task for example something that was really strongly depending on the hippocampus and we
normally see an association of (?)sleep. So we think that slowing sleep is enhancing memory
consolidation for this kind of task. So this is when you talk about microstructure and we
normally talk about the sleep stages, so Stage 1 2 3 and then REM sleep. Another important
factor is the sleep spindles: I don't know if you've read about them so it's a short burst of a
hyper(?) activity and it’s normally what we think is a communication between hippocampus and
neuro contacts(?) so this is like something that you think is really essential for long term memory
storage. And that has been associated with a lot of memory tasks as well, and then the problem I
faced with the data I had was (?)commission task. It’s not really clear what is really unaligned
because you don't have to recall it from your memory completely right because it's triggered
from something else. This is why it wasn't really clear. It's actually sleep kind of enhanced
recognition process because it might be that the trigger is enough and you don't actually need to
store the data very well. And that's something that the recognition task can’t really test deep
dissociation. And with the threefold test it’s easy because you either know it or you don’t know it
while list of recognition(?) you can guess. And then if you guess it right it doesn't really tell us
anything about how big the code..how big the connection was stored. And so that's why (?) was a
bit difficult and that's why we didn't find any any association with the microstructure.

PS: Do you know if there are any harmful factors that could impact people's ability to acquire
knowledge through sleep dependent memory?

LM: so yeah I mean if you if you have a sleep disorder then there's something going to affect you
and that's something you not only see in insomnia that’s something you see in sleep apnea, for
example. If you have someone with restless leg syndrome that's about the same every day,
basically what happens next is that they have a really really fragmental sleep and they don't
really get to the deep stage of sleep. So what they don't have is a stage 3 and they're having some
what deep sleep is lacking, they have more light sleep and more fragment. And then we also see
memory complaints of difficulties with REM. And on the other spectrum we also see people with
memory complaints who don’t have good sleep. So for example you see less and less high
quality sleep basically and people with Alzheimer’s or dementia.

PS: So from this article I understand that eight hours of sleep after learning new information lets
people to retain information better. Would you say that adolescents are being deprived in this
ability by not getting a full eight hours of sleep due to other work and responsibilities

LM: In a way like yeah, it would be the same in adolescents if they don’t sleep enough they will
have memory informants(?). It's hard to define how much is not enough sleep but what we
normally see with adolescents is- I don't know if you think about tests or exams in school
because then there’s like a huge impact from the circadian aspect. So that's something that you
always have to keep in mind as well as your memory performance is not just depending on your
sleep and it’s also depending on the time of day you're getting tested. So that's that's another
thing that's kind of difficult to disentangle and especially for adolescents we see that there's a
huge effect on off the clock, basically off our body clock so there’s morning types and evening
types and then depending on when the test is, morning time is when normally you perform better.
And so that normally correlates with those people who didn’t get enough sleep because normally
it’s the evening time that adolescents are not getting enough sleep because school starts early,
right, but also it’s the time of the day where the test is the perfect time for them.

PS: So I also noticed that investigated sleep dependent memory improvements in depressed and
psychotic adolescents, could you tell me what you've discovered about them?

LM: With adolescents we didn’t really look that much into memory consolidation. I’m trying to
remember what we did… it was basically a study looking at psychotic and depressed adolescents
and the idea was to see if there’s a common underlying factor and the onset of this disease in
their sleep because basically depression and psychosis both start developing in adolescents. And
in adolescents it’s a really vulnerable phase for developing any kind of disorder, mental disorder.
So we have them in the lab but just for one night and then we're looking at their sleep and
compare that to controls and comparative processes (?). And we had a memory task which was
an auto-memory task, and we had some cognitive tests. I don't think we saw any difference in
there… but it was also really difficult because the group was really… because there’s not that
many adolescents who are depressed(?), or at least you know, because I was in Switzerland(?)
and I think it's only 1 percent of the nation. So really, it was really hard to get the sample. And
then once you got it, um, the proper (?) and some of them are on medication and others are not,
so it was really hard to disentangle that so I normally we see a memory decline in people's
depression as well. But in this study we haven't we haven't tested for it. We didn't have memory
when we test the phone after.

PS: I think those are all of my questions that I have for you. Thank you so much for agreeing to
do this interview with me.

LM: Yeah sure! Um do you already know, what is your project going to be about?

PS: Um, I'm actually researching the effects of technology on the quality of sleep in adolescents
and how it impacts their cognitive abilities. And I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to
completely execute this but I have an idea of creating a public health campaign where I can raise
awareness of these issues, of the issues that occur with sleep deprivation and then raise
awareness and then show it to other high schoolers in my area.

LM: Oh nice, I think that’s interesting. I have two colleagues of mine in the lab, they did
something which is called teen sleep project. And basically what they did, they were traveling
around the whole U.K., and giving sleep education to the teachers and then basically the
teachers will teach sleep education in their classes. And of course this was containing things like
(?) this lecturing motion about technology is about blue light. I think it was really interesting. I
think at the end I didn't see that many effects, but the bad sleep was improved while other people
who didn’t have problems didn’t change. And if you need any further information or if you…
I’m not sure if I can, because I’m not really focused on adolescents anymore, and but we have
some other people in our lab who are, so if you want any further contact I’m happy to get you in
touch with other people

PS: Were there any publications that the group who went to who went around focusing on teen
sleep?

LM: I’m not sure, I think they're wrapping up everything now, but I can see if there is some data
available

PS: Would it be possible to get any contact information for anyone who's researching adolescent
sleep or impact of sleep in technology.

LM: I can get you in touch with Rachel and Gaby, they’re the ones who identify sleep studies
because especially like, focusing on technology we don’t really have someone in the lab we don't
really know. Someone… talks about it… I have no one in my lab doing that. But I’m happy to
get in touch with Gaby and Rachel, I’m gonna see them next time and I can ask them and send
you their resources.

PS: OK. Good. I think that's it. Thank you so much.

LM: Have a nice day. OK. Bye.

 Paula Shin
IR-2/11 AP
11/16/17
Reflection

On Thursday, November 16, I had my first interview. It was with a student at the Sleep

and Circadian Neuroscience Center in Oxford, England. It was extremely interesting talking to

someone who was across the ocean, as there was a huge time difference between us. She is

currently seeking her DPhil, which I believe is the American version of a PHD, so I thought I

could acquire some valuable information about her research. The interview went well, I asked

her about her research and the information that she has learned, which she told me. After one of

her responses I formulated a question based off the information she told me, but most of the

time, I asked her random questions that did not lead up to one another, that jumped from one

topic to another. This is something that I will change for my next interview, as I was too focused

on preparing myself to ask the next question that I did not build on the information she gave me.

Next time, I will take notes as the speaker is talking, rather than focus on what to ask the

interviewee next. Something that was difficult about the preparation process was choosing the

right questions to ask, because I wanted to ensure that my questions were thoughtful, and I didn’t

want the interview to seem useless. Another thing that was difficult about the interview was

finding the right words to say after the interviewee answered my question, as I was not focused

on the content because I relied too much entirely on the fact that I recorded the conversation and

would get the information later, which was a terrible method to go about this interview. NExt

time, I will make sure that I only focus on the interviewee’s words because that way, I can

formulate thoughtful questions that build off of the information she says instead of asking

questions that jump from one topic to another.