Eight-bed center to explore links between sleep, biological rhythms, mental health
One of the world’s first laboratories solely devoted to research on how sleep and biological rhythms influence depression, substance abuse and other aspects of mental well-being has opened at the U-M Health System.
The Sleep & Chronophysiology Laboratory, based at the Depression Center, welcomed the first research volunteers to its new eight-bed facility this month, and is seeking participants for a number of research studies.
And even though the comfortable beds, fluffy down comforters and muted lighting make it look more like a cozy hotel than a research lab, the new facility is home to a number of highly scientific studies on sleep and the daily cycles known as circadian rhythms.
Two of the bedrooms are located within suites that may be unique in the world. Called Temporal Isolation Labs, they’re designed so that a research volunteer can be closed off entirely from the outside world, unable to tell the time of day.
These suites are specially equipped with banks of lights on the walls and ceiling that can be adjusted by the center’s staff to simulate all times of day or night. This can allow a volunteer’s innate circadian rhythms — patterns of rest and activity in both body and mind — to be monitored or even temporarily altered. The facility also can be used for light therapy to combat problems such as depression.
“Already, we know that people with depression, seasonal affective disorders, anxiety disorders, alcoholism and many more conditions suffer terrible disruptions to their sleep patterns, and that in turn, a lack of good-quality sleep worsens their conditions,” says Director Roseanne Armitage, professor of psychiatry at the Medical School. “But there are so many unanswered questions about why this happens, how early in life it begins and how it might be treated or prevented. This lab will help us do just that.”
Armitage and Associate Director Robert Hoffmann have been studying sleep, circadian rhythms and mood disorders for decades, including the past five years at U-M. But the new facility doubles the space for their laboratory team, and other researchers, to perform such studies in infants, children, teens and adults.
