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Regional Rates of Cerebral Protein Synthesis: Effects of Sleep and Memory Consolidation

NCT00884702 · Status: COMPLETED · Type: OBSERVATIONAL · Enrollment: 538

Last updated 2017-10-06

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Background:

* The brain needs sleep to function normally, but the purpose of sleep is not understood. Brain activity decreases during sleep, so it may be that sleep is important to maintain, repair, or reorganize brain cells. In animals, the formation of brain proteins increases during sleep, and the same thing may happen in humans.
* There is also evidence that learning and memory are helped by sleep, and that the synthesis of proteins in the brain are involved.

Objectives:

* To examine the formation of proteins in the brain while people are awake, deprived of sleep, and during sleep.
* To look at the formation of proteins in the brain while awake or asleep and following learning a task.

Eligibility:

* Healthy volunteers between 18 and 28 years of age.
* Volunteers must not have psychiatric, neurologic, or sleep disorders or certain types of vision problems, and must be able to undergo imaging studies.

Design:

* Study Part I (protein formation in waking, sleep deprivation, and sleep):
* Participants will wear an actigraph (a unit to record motor activity) for 2 weeks prior to admission.
* Participants will have physical and psychological examinations, along with a blood sample.
* After admission participants will have three positron emission tomography (PET) scans to study protein formation and one magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan over the course of two days.
* Participants may be asked to stay awake for as long as 20 hours and will be monitored throughout.
* Participants will be able to sleep overnight after they complete the required scans and monitoring, and will be discharged the following morning.
* Study Part II (protein formation in waking and sleep combined with a learning task):
* Participants will wear an actigraph (a unit to record motor activity) for 2 weeks prior to admission.
* Participants will have physical and psychological examinations, along with a blood sample.
* After admission participants may be asked to stay awake for as long as 20 hours and will be monitored throughout.
* The next morning, participants will be trained to perform a computerized visual discrimination task, and will be tested 8 hours later (after sleep or after remaining awake) on the visual discrimination task.
* Some participants may have PET and MRI scans as part of the study.
* Participants will be able to sleep overnight after they complete the required tests and scans, and will be discharged the following morning.
* Participants will receive financial compensation for their participation in these studies.

Conditions

  • Brain Mapping

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

    lead NIH

Principal Investigators

  • Carolyn B Smith, Ph.D. · National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
28 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2009-04-16
Completion
2017-04-18

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT00884702 on ClinicalTrials.gov