Consequences of Caffeine Intake in Sleep Restricted Teenagers

Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to systematically investigate two prominent factors in teenagers' daily life: Caffeine and sleep restriction (SR) and their combined influence on sleep, cognition, and behavior in healthy adolescents. The main questions it aims to answer are:

The effects of caffeine under conditions of SR and SE:

* on sleep pressure and sleep continuity.
* on BOLD activity differences in reward related areas during a reward task (monetary incentive delay task) and on reaction times (behavioral aspect) in the same task.
* on BOLD activity differences during a risk taking task (wheel of fortune task) and on risky decision-making (behavioral aspect) in the same task.

Participants will be either in the SR or SE condition (between-subject). The protocol consists of 2x of approximately one week in which a participant will receive caffeine or placebo (within-subject) at the last two evenings.

The experiment consists of an ambulatory and a laboratory phase:

* The ambulatory phase consists of 5 nights, including 3 stabilization nights (8h sleep opportunity) prior to 2 nights consisting of either SR with 6h sleep opportunity or SE with 9.5h sleep opportunity. Participants will wear an actiwatch and fill out sleep diaries during this period.
* The laboratory phase will be the 6th evening, night and morning of the protocol and will be spent in our lab. Participants will do the following:
* treatment (caffeine vs. placebo) intake
* saliva sampling
* drug screening
* cognitive tests, including risk-taking and reward task
* filling in questionnaires (sleep diary, sleep quality, sleepiness, mood, expectancy)
* waking and sleep with EEG

The next day, participants will undergo an fMRI scan, including the following:

* resting-state scan
* structural scan
* arterial spin labeling scan
* reward task scan
* risk-taking task scan

Around the scan, participants will fill out/undergo:

* saliva sampling
* questionnaires (reward task, mood, sleepiness, expectancy)

Conditions

• Caffeine
• Insufficient Sleep

Interventions

DRUG

Caffeine

2mg/kg, once before night 6 and once before the scan (either on week 1 or 2, alternating with placebo)

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Zurich

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Basel

  collaborator OTHER

• University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Pittsburgh

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Liege

  collaborator OTHER

• Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Carolin Reichert, Dr. · University of Basel

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

14 Years

Max Age

17 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-03-31

Primary Completion

2024-09-30

Completion

2024-09-30

Countries

• Switzerland

Study Locations