Sleep

How AI and neuromodulation could help with sleep disorders

siddiq22 — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 18:37:12 +0000

How AI and neuromodulation could help with sleep disorders

siddiq22 Tue, 07/11/2023 - 14:37

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Assistant Professor Xilin Liu and his collaborators are developing electronic devices that could help patients suffering from sleep disorders (photo courtesy Xilin Liu)

Selah Katona

Topic

Breaking Research

Artificial Intelligence

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

machine learning

Neurology

Research & Innovation

Sleep

Subheadline

'We still don’t fully comprehend what actually occurs in our brains during sleep'

A new partnership between the University of Toronto's Xilin Liu, assistant professor in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, and Andrew G. Richardson, research assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania, will develop a new generation of electronic devices to investigate sleep modulation.

Their research will potentially develop new interventions that help deal with a wide range of sleep disorders.

On average, we spend a third of our life asleep. During sleep, the brain undergoes important processes that support memory consolidation, neural restoration and the clearance of toxins. Sleep disruptions can interfere with these processes. But while good "sleep hygiene" is increasingly recognized as crucial to both physical and mental health, sleep disorders remain widespread.

“40 per cent of Canadians have sleep disorders, with over 3 million suffering from insomnia,” says Liu, director of the X-Lab and affiliate scientist at the the KITE Research Institute.

“Sleep deficits negatively affect brain functions such as attention and memory, and immune function, metabolism and heart health. Chronic sleep-wake disruptions are connected to neurodegenerative disorders such as Huntington’s, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, and cognitive decline with aging.”

This diagram describes the process of closed-loop sleep modulation via miniaturized electronics
(image courtesy of Xilin Liu)

Liu’s research focuses on developing integrated circuits and systems for advancing health care, digital communication and machine learning. In the new collaboration, he will be building fully integrated wireless systems-on-chips that can autonomously modulate sleep behavior in pre-clinical studies.

“Sleep is a complex procedure involving different stages and patterns,” he says. “To address this, we are integrating machine-learning algorithms into our devices. These new algorithms can recognize sleep patterns and identify sleep disorders that may not be distinguishable using traditional algorithms.”

Liu and his collaborators hope that these new approaches will enable them to gain a deeper understanding of how our brains function during sleep and how to modulate sleep circuits.

They also plan to incorporate various neural interfacing capabilities into the system, which will enable more accurate and precise interventions. The results of this research will contribute to the advancement of neuromodulation, a technology that involves placing devices inside a patient’s brain, spinal cord or peripheral nerves. These devices are designed to regulate neural activity and help reduce symptoms related to different disorders.

Liu is a faculty member of the CRANIA Neuromodulation Institute (CNMI) in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, which brings together experts in engineering and neuroscience in a collaborative hub for neuromodulation research.

Liu’s project was recently awarded $2.2 million by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through their Research Project Grant Program (R01), and is supported by industry partners such as the Canadian Microelectronics Corporation and Open Ephys.

The NIH R01 grant is a highly competitive award and Liu and Richardson’s proposal fell in the top 1 per cent of applications.

“This is a great sign that NIH recognizes the value and impact of this research and the caliber of the team,” Liu says. “We’re excited to receive this funding and over the next four years we hope to get to a stage where the technology can be used in clinical trials.”

Liu’s research team has a long-term goal of creating wearable devices for sleep modulation that people can use at home to enhance the quality of their sleep.

“While there are medications available to treat sleep disorders, the challenge lies in the fact that we still don’t fully comprehend what actually occurs in our brains during sleep,” Liu says.

“It’s possible that there are low-cost, high-efficacy treatments available for sleep disorders that we are currently unaware of.”

Through quilting, PhD student accepts her sleeplessness and challenges the 'sleep industrial complex'

geoff.vendeville — Thu, 25 Nov 2021 17:31:55 +0000

Through quilting, PhD student accepts her sleeplessness and challenges the 'sleep industrial complex'

geoff.vendeville Thu, 11/25/2021 - 12:31

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Kristie Serota, a PhD student in public health, made a quilt to describe her relationship with sleeplessness and challenge the conception of insomnia as a medical disorder (photos courtesy of Kristie Serota)

Françoise Makanda

Topic

Breaking Research

COVID-19

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Public Health

Sleep

About one-in-four adults in Canada reports being dissatisfied with their sleep. But instead of fighting sleeplessness, Kristie Serota chose to embrace it.

The PhD candidate at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health took up quilting in the wee hours to document her relationship with sleeplessness – and to critique what some researchers call the “sleep industrial complex.”

In the latest issue of Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal, she says nocturnal quilting helped her accept sleeplessness as a part of her life rather than a medical disorder in need of fixing – an insight that speaks to a larger public health issue related to precarious employment, inflexible work schedules and other stressors that often disproportionately affect marginalized groups.

Kristie Serota

“You know sporadically, periodically or continuously having trouble falling asleep and staying asleep is just a normal part of our human experience, and yet we have special mattresses, oil diffusers, teas and meditation,” Serota says. “Who is benefitting from this?”

Serota came up with the idea of quilting to critique the “biomedical construction of sleeplessness as insomnia” during a narrative research course taught by Michael Atkinson, a professor at Dalla Lana who specializes in the study of suffering and pain across cultures and health-care contexts.

The course challenges students to recount a personal health experience using a medium of their choice.

Although sleep aids represent a multi-billion-dollar market, Atkinson notes these products do not address the core causes of insomnia. “It doesn’t fix the conditions of your existence,” he says. “You still have to get up early. You still have to go to work. You still live within those structures. You still have anxieties.”

Atkinson says the influence of one's social climate on sleep cannot be underestimated. Studies suggest that socially marginalized people, including disadvantaged women, are most vulnerable to insomnia.

“The most vulnerable members of any social structure usually report higher in categories related to population health conditions and this is certainly true of insomnia,” Atkinson says.

While there is a substantial body of research on sleep and a massive sleep product industry, there is relatively little public-health research on the subject, Atkinson says – except for a small area of scholarship on the sleep industrial complex.

He says it may be time to pay greater attention to the social causes of insomnia, which Atkinson categorizes as an invisible disability.

With the shift in work schedules during the pandemic, many have experienced disruptions to their sleep for better or worse. While added anxiety has kept some up at night, others have said remote work has given them greater flexibility catch some shut-eye according to their own schedule.

In Serota's case, she says working remotely allowed her to follow a sleep cycle that matches her internal clock.

“I have just embraced sleeplessness and instead of fighting against myself and getting really frustrated and worked up that I can’t fall asleep. I just get out of bed and go do something else, and then wait until I feel tired and then say ‘Okay, I guess, now is when I’m going to go to sleep,'” she says.

However, Serota acknowledges that embracing sleeplessness requires a flexible work schedule that isn't available to everyone.

Atkinson, too, says a nine-to-five work schedule, plus after-hours work demands, can cause stress that makes it difficult to sleep.

“We’ve got these nine-to-five schedules or whatever schedules that structure our existence,” he says. “But we take so much of that home and it’s never over, and so we’re either working late into the night, or we have 100 million things in our head at night. And this is such a common thing.

“You’re not able to sleep within the confines of that structure,“ he adds. “You never get to sleep, and then it creates more anxiety when you try to sleep because you’re constantly worried.”

Atkinson recommends looking into health interventions that could promote work-life balance: changing the length of work shifts, giving employees the ability to work from home and reducing job insecurity.

On a cultural level, he says it is worth re-examining the idea that living with stress that keeps us up at night is natural. “The worst thing that happens is that we assume culturally that the lack of sleep is normal,” he says.

U of T researcher David Samson on the mental health rewards of sleep – and tips on how to achieve it

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 03:50:21 +0000

U of T researcher David Samson on the mental health rewards of sleep – and tips on how to achieve it

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 06/03/2021 - 23:50

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(Photo by Luis Alvarez via Getty Images)

Topic

With the fast pace and constant pressures of our daily lives, it can be difficult to get adequate shut-eye.

But research has shown that, especially during stressful periods, quality sleep is paramount to our well-being.

David Samson

David Samson, an assistant professor of anthropology at University of Toronto Mississauga and director of the Sleep and Human Evolution Lab (SHEL), has conducted studies that suggest humans’ capacity for deep sleep sets us apart from other animals.

By sleeping in great apes’ tree nests in Africa to staying up all night to monitor orangutans, Samson found that humans experience a greater proportion of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep even though we sleep relatively little compared to other primates.

“One of the best ways university students can buttress their mental health is by focusing on their sleep quality,” Samson says.

He recently spoke to U of T News about how humans have evolved alongside their sleeping environments, the importance of sleep to our physical and emotional states and shared some practical tips for getting a good night’s rest.

What are the benefits of getting a good night’s sleep, and on the flipside, not having it?

If you get a proper amount of sleep, it will regulate your immune function, your social function, your ability to process energy and metabolism effectively. In the past five years, the linkage between mental health and sleep has been very clearly demonstrated. One massive randomized control trial that looked at psychological intervention for mental health problems actually highlights sleep as one of the core answers to ameliorate several different mental disorders. In particular, insomnia was a causal factor for the occurrence of psychotic experiences.

University students are particularly susceptible to this because a lot of university students will forgo sleep for a myriad of reasons. There has definitely been a link between nighttime sleep duration and its frequency, and psychological distress. One of the best ways university students can buttress their mental health is by focusing on their sleep quality.

This is because REM in particular is implicated in the function of emotional regulation. Say something bad happens, like you’re going through a breakup. One of the only ways to remove the emotional effect – that signal of emotional feeling that your brain links to the memory – is through REM sleep. So, when your mom says, “Sleep on it, you’ll feel better in the morning,” there is science to back that up.

We’re often told you should sleep eight hours each night. Is this true?

The National Sleep Foundation recommends seven to nine hours. In my research, I couldn’t find anything that showed me eight was a magic number for humans. In fact, when I went to look at the Hadza, small-scale hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, coupled with what the reports actually were for how much people were sleeping in the West and the global North, I think a more appropriate average is seven hours. You’re not going to be in an increased risk group if you’re sleeping between seven and nine. On the other hand, if you sleep too long, this is also linked with depressive disorders, and you’re twice as likely to die of all kinds of causes of mortality if you sleep double digits on average.

I encourage my students to not eat for three hours before going to bed because every distinct organ in your body has its own circadian clock, so the more you synchronize all of them, the easier it is to fall asleep. One of the things I do is focus on my circadian rhythm. I reserve vices like drinking booze or playing video games for the daytime, when your body is most prepared to be able to process and handle that.

How did you start looking at the role of sleep in human evolution?

When I first got into scientific research in graduate school, I was interested in chimpanzees and great apes in particular. Through those studies, I realized that we really didn’t know much about great ape sleep besides the fact that apes are really unique in that they – and I would include humans as apes as well – universally build sleeping platforms. Most monkeys, even large-brain and large-bodied monkeys, don’t do this. Chimpanzees, bonobos and humans are relatively unique in that they care about the kinds of sleep environments that they build and sleep in.

This got me thinking about the role of sleep in evolution, particularly from a cognitive perspective. When I went to do my post-doc at Duke University and teamed up with my adviser Professor Charles Nunn, we ended up doing some pretty sophisticated phylogenetic analyses, where essentially you’re controlling for the degree of evolutionary relatedness among species. We discovered that humans are actually quite bizarre. They’re unique when it comes to sleep characteristics: the distribution of REM, non-REM and total sleep time throughout the sleep period. Even after controlling for evolutionary relatedness, we discovered that humans slept the least, yet they had the greatest proportion of REM sleep of any primate.

Why are humans able to get by with relatively less sleep?

We came up with the sleep intensity hypothesis, which is the idea that evolution and natural selection whittled away total sleep time in our lineage, and what this allowed our lineage to do was to still get really high-quality sleep because we had very enriched sleep sites. We had sleep sites that were centralized by large group sizes; we had shelter from being able to manipulate branches and animal hides in the environment; we had the controlled use of fire. These resources allowed us to create these beautiful, high-quality sleep sites that we could revisit at any point in the 24-hour period.

There are numerous predators and threats when sleeping in the African savanna, so sleeping in a group would also help and deepen sleep. Even among modern-day sleepers, people who are socially isolated have more fragmented sleep than people who are well socially connected.

This short, high-quality sleep enabled things like social bonding, increased memory consolidation by learning new skills (particularly associated with REM, information processing and consolidation). There is also research that has shown that dreaming and REM sleep actually increase innovation, and perhaps there is some kind of function in REM where dreams simulate threatening events in order to help you prepare for them.

Having trouble sleeping? David Samson and other experts recommend the following:

Make your sleeping environment a sacred place – create that “nest” and remove a lot of distractions
Having a big LCD screen in front of you emitting blue wave light is a horrible idea – limit cellphone usage, or, if you do use your cellphone, use a blue light blocker
Don’t drink caffeine in the afternoon – caffeine has an incredibly long half-life as a neural modulator, so even if you think a cup of coffee isn’t affecting you, it is still in your neuroendocrine system
Train your brain – having a nightly routine with a consistent bedtime is an important part of sleep hygiene, experts say. It’s also a good idea to avoid using your bed for lounging on during the day, reading or watching TV, so that when your head hits the pillow you know it’s time for sleep
Keep it cool (or warm) – the temperature of your bedroom can also make a difference on how soundly you sleep; maintaining a sleep diary for a while may help you figure out what works best for you
Tune out – bedtime can be the moment when your brain latches on to worrying thoughts. Try giving your brain something else to focus on instead of anxious thoughts. Listening to a sleepy podcast like Nothing Much Happens, the BBC’s Slow Radio, a recording of whale sounds or rainfall can help
Daytime equals active time – experts advise against exercising late at night but moving your body more during the day can really help regulate sleep
Don’t just lie there – if you can’t fall asleep or wake up and can’t get back to sleep, try not to dwell on your inability to sleep. Instead, consider getting up and doing something calming for a while (read, sip some water) before trying again.

Babies and sleep: U of T expert shares her tips for bleary-eyed parents

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 22:11:40 +0000

Babies and sleep: U of T expert shares her tips for bleary-eyed parents

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 03/02/2021 - 17:11

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(photo by Danielle Reid/EyeEm via Getty Images)

Rebecca Biason

Topic

Our Community

Babies

Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

Mount Sinai Hospital

Sleep

Getting enough sleep with an infant can seem elusive at best. Yet, while we would all like to have more sleep, many new parents simply resign themselves to an exhausted state, seeing it as a rite of passage.

Robyn Stremler suggests a different approach.

“Sleep is important – not just for cognition and mood, but also for the physiological mechanisms of the body, like blood sugar regulation and metabolism, and infants reap those benefits as well,” says Stremler an associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and an adjunct scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children.

To get babies to sleep, Stremler says try to maintain a consistent bedtime routine and a cool, quiet and dark sleep environment. She adds that parents and older children will benefit from this approach, too.

As a member of the Pediatric Sleep Council, a group of international pediatric sleep clinicians and researchers, Stremler this week took part in an event for Baby Sleep Day, recognized internationally as part of an initiative to raise awareness about the importance of sleep even for the youngest members of society.

Stremler has conducted research into nurse-led interventions during the early post-partum period as well as ongoing research projects that look at improving sleep for families who have children and babies in the neonatal intensive care unit and pediatric intensive care unit and who are undergoing treatment for cancer. She also runs infant sleep workshops through the Sinai Health System, where she teaches expectant parents about the importance of sleep during the postpartum period.

To raise further awareness about the significance of sleep and in light of the challenges many parents are facing during the pandemic, Stremler recently shared her expertise with writer Rebecca Biason.

Why is it so hard to get babies to sleep?

A lot of parents I have worked with know they are going to miss out on sleep, but they do not know what is normal and, often for new parents, they do not know what to expect. Infants’ sleep changes so much over the first year, particularly in how their sleep is organized. We know infants’ circadian rhythms start to move sleep more into the nighttime at around three months of age, but one of the biggest challenges with infant sleep is that every day can be different.

Growth spurts can really disrupt sleep and they tie into more night feedings, or cluster feedings for a parent who is breastfeeding. Pain and discomfort from teething can also be another issue that impacts sleep. We also find that when an infant is sleeping it is tempting for parents to want to use that time to get work done instead of prioritizing sleep.

During my research study investigating a nurse-led intervention to improve sleep during the postpartum period, we talked with parents about the importance of their sleep because it really is as much of a priority. When some of these challenges around infant sleep happen night after night, it can be easy for parents who are sleep deprived to get into negative thought patterns. Whether you have children or not, everyone can relate to the feeling of not having enough sleep. Not only is your mood and cognitive function impaired, but how you interact with others is impacted, and this also has links to postpartum depression (PPD).

What are some tips and strategies?

In my prenatal classes, I encourage expecting families to talk with each other and prepare in advance a plan for how they are going to access resources when the going gets tough. This also includes learning to recognize signs of postpartum depression, as it can affect not only the birth parent but supporting partners as well. It is hard when you are in the thick of things to know when to reach out for help.

I suggest working through a plan before birth that includes identifying who your health-care provider is and how to contact them if PPD signs start to appear. Also consider who in your support network is available to call on to deliver meals to the porch or diapers to the door, even if they cannot help you in person. I also ask parents to plan for how they will take care of themselves. If your partner is able to be at home with you during the pandemic, prioritize something restful for yourself.

It is important to remember that sleep is a behaviour. One of the things I suggest for new parents is to be as consistent as possible with infant sleep, including setting up an environment and a routine that is conducive to sleep. This can help decrease the number of sleep interruptions for infants as young as six or 12 weeks old.

To set the tone for sleep, create a brief enjoyable bedtime routine that your infant can rely on. This can include a cuddle and a song or a story just before they go to sleep.

Keep the sleep environment cool, dark and quiet. This is important for parents and children of all ages.

Remember that sleep is not a competitive sport and there will be blips in the road, but give yourself flexibility and a reminder that it will pass. I often remind parents not to compare themselves or get caught up in how someone else’s infant is sleeping. You have to do what feels right for your baby and your family. I encourage parents to look at other markers of good sleep like if your baby is happy during the day and growing well.

How has the pandemic impacted sleep for parents and children?

I think there has been a bit of mix in how the pandemic has affected sleep. There are a good chunk of people reporting difficulty with sleeping due to anxiety or stress, including not having the same access to a support network of family and friends that they might have had pre-pandemic.

As for parents of older children, increased screen time due to remote learning and less activity overall has also likely had a negative impact on sleep.

At the same time, the increased flexibility around remote learning and working from home for parents has shifted bedtime and wake-up schedules. For children who had difficulty with falling asleep at bedtime or struggled to get up in the morning before the pandemic, their families have found improved sleep with more relaxed schedules and decreased commutes.

Everything works better when you have more sleep, so prioritizing it as much as possible and doing things to help yourself and your child – even in the midst of the challenging time we are living in – can provide real benefits.

Up all night? U of T researcher offers five tips for resting easy in these uncertain times

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 15:21:19 +0000

Up all night? U of T researcher offers five tips for resting easy in these uncertain times

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 03/24/2020 - 11:21

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(photo by LaylaBird via Getty Images)

Topic

Tossing and turning at night amid the COVID-19 outbreak? You’re not alone. University of Toronto Mississauga anthropologist and sleep expert David Samson explains why we experience insomnia, how sleep helps boost physical and emotional health and how to get a better night’s rest in these uncertain times.

Samson studies the link between human evolution and sleep, with a particular focus on cognition. He is a co-author on a new study that investigates the evolutionary link between fear and insomnia.

According to Samson (left), early humans developed a sense of fear to protect themselves from predators in ancestral environments like the African Savannah. “A healthy dose of fear and sleep architecture, where certain members of the group are awake at any given time, served the function of keeping us alive,” he says.

“However, we evolved fear for acute, not chronic responses,” Samson explains. Acute fear subsides when no attack arrives. But in a contemporary setting, modern humans have a “misguided sense of fear.” In other words, our busy nighttime brains confuse upcoming work presentations or a spate of bad news with a lion attack.

“When fear fails to subside, for some people it becomes chronic and leads to insomnia,” Samson says.

That fear may be exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. During social isolation, many of us are in close quarters with household members and physically isolated from supportive friends and family. Coupled with never-ending news updates, Samson says the situation can “create a baseline state of chronic fear with nowhere to direct it,” resulting in long nights tossing and turning.

“In this situation, sleep becomes more important than ever,” he says.

Research shows that sleep is critical to supporting our physical and emotional health. On the emotional front, sleep helps us to process emotions and supports emotional regulation during stressful situations.

Sleep is also critical to keeping us physically healthy. “In deep sleep, you’re developing antibodies that help fight off infection,” says Samson, whose latest research, “Failure of fear extinction in insomnia: an evolutionary perspective” is published in Sleep Medicine Reviews. “Sleep helps with immune regulation, and that’s really important.”

While so much currently feels beyond our control, Samson says sticking to a pre-bedtime routine can help you to get some shut-eye and stay healthy. Here are his five tips:

Cut the snacks

Natural circadian rhythms send a cue to your body that it’s time to wind down for sleep, but eating sends a conflicting signal that it’s time to be awake. Scheduling dinner three hours before bedtime and cutting after-dinner snacks is a “powerful strategy” when it comes to maintaining good sleep routine, according to Samson.

Game over

Playing competitive video games increases the body’s uptake of hormones that drive a desire to win – and that makes it hard to fall asleep once the game is over. “Gamers are the worst-sleeping cohort," says Samson, who is also a dedicated gamer. He suggests keeping gaming sessions to daytime only.

Lights out

Samson advises limiting blue light from fixtures when possible. That means turning off unnecessary lights around the house in the evening. Using warm-hued light bulbs or blue light-blocking glasses will help, too.

Unplug

“As we are stuck indoors, many of us are connecting online for social interaction, entertainment and news,” Samson says. However, he recommends powering down screens and other devices at least an hour before bedtime and ensuring our bedrooms are free of distractions. Reading a book is a great way to unwind before drifting off, he says.

And for kids ...

Parents can help children rest easy by creating a reliable bedtime routine and modelling good behaviour themselves. Samson says establishing a solid routine in childhood will be beneficial in the long-term. “Getting kids to practice now will add thousands of good-quality sleep hours to their adult lives.”

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture launches new gallery with inaugural installation 'New Circadia'

noreen.rasbach — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 15:00:18 +0000

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture launches new gallery with inaugural installation 'New Circadia'

noreen.rasbach Wed, 11/06/2019 - 10:00

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The new Architecture and Design Gallery's inaugural exhibition, New Circadia, transforms the 7,500-square-foot space into a darkened, cave-like environment designed specifically to coddle the body and calm the mind

Stephen Kupferman

Topic

City & Culture

Culture

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

Sleep

Subheadline

'We are interested in using architecture to convey the idea that idling and resting isn't unproductive. It's essential'

Most art and design exhibitions demand rapt attention from visitors. Nobody would visit a gallery expecting to lay back and let their mind wander in a darkened space, where every detail has been tweaked to encourage states of rest and repose.

And yet, that type of relaxation is precisely what will be asked of visitors at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design's new Architecture and Design Gallery when it opens to the public on Thursday.

The gallery's inaugural exhibition, New Circadia, transforms the new, 7,500-square-foot space into a darkened, cave-like environment designed specifically to coddle the body and calm the mind. The installation, curated by Richard Sommer, dean of the Daniels Faculty, in partnership with Natalie Fizer and Emily Stevenson of Pillow Culture, a New York–based interdisciplinary design studio, will open to the public on Friday until April 30.

If the idea of an architecture school designing an environment intended to put visitors to sleep sounds counterintuitive, that’s mostly by design. New Circadia's curators see it as a kind of antidote to the effects of normal architectural practice.

“Architecture is inextricably bound up in the urbanization of the planet,” Sommer says. “In fact, the very culture of the profession of architecture has been built on adopting mindsets and technologies that mechanize the body, facilitate long work hours and encourage a 24/7 lifestyle. Architecture marks time as much as it shapes space. We are interested in using architecture to convey the idea that idling and resting isn't unproductive. It's essential.”

The project was inspired by the Mammoth Cave Experiment, a 1938 study in which University of Chicago professor Nathaniel Klietman and his student, Bruce Richardson, sequestered themselves underground in Kentucky's Mammoth Cave. There, in a primordial space, shut away from daylight and daily fluctuations in temperature, they tried to investigate what happens when the human body deviates from a 24-hour cycle of sleep and wakefulness.

New Circadia won't require its visitors to be quite so intrepid. The installation will be split into three distinct zones. The "Transitory Zone" will be a vestibule-like area lit with CoeLux technology –artificial skylights that create the impression of perpetual daylight. Visitors to the gallery will remove their shoes and coats, and then drape their bodies with pillow-like "spelunking gear."

Once visitors are suitably outfitted, they'll enter the "Dark Zone," a dimly lit area filled with curving structures intended to resemble the uneven surfaces found in the interior of natural caves. But unlike the surfaces in a natural cave, New Circadia's "rocks" and floors will be covered with thick, soft felt. There will be subtle, cycling lights and sounds. All of this will help create what the curators refer to as a “loungescape.” Visitors will be encouraged to make use of the Dark Zone's soft surfaces for self-directed rest and meditation.

The third zone, called "Oneiroi," is a project by Assistant Professor Petros Babasikas and artist Chrissou Voulgari. Visitors will be invited to record descriptions of their dreams or listen to dreams recorded by previous visitors.

At various times throughout New Circadia's six-month run, the Daniels Faculty will host speakers, musicians, and other types of experimental performers in the space. The precise dates and times of these special events will be announced on the Daniels Faculty's website in coming weeks.

The launch of New Circadia will mark the grand opening of the Daniels Faculty's Architecture and Design Gallery, a reclaimed space on the lower level of the faculty's new home in the Daniels Building, at One Spadina Crescent. The area that is now the gallery was originally a coal storage area within the 19^th-century Knox Theological Seminary’s cloister. (The former seminary building – later the Connaught Laboratory – has been fully renovated, and it now forms the southern half of the Daniels Building.)

The coal bin was excavated and remediated. With financial support from the estate of James Drewry Stewart and the federal government’s Canada Cultural Spaces Fund, the area where the bin was located was ultimately transformed into a usable room. The new gallery is now the only large exhibition space in Toronto devoted entirely to architecture and design.

New Circadia will run from Nov. 8 to April 30. There will be a public launch event on Nov. 7, for which free tickets are still available. For gallery hours, see the Daniels Faculty's website. Support for New Circadia exhibition was provided by the Lorne M. Gertner Fund.

Why your teen stays up late, you sleep poorly: new research confirms 'sentinel theory'

krisha — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 23:33:08 +0000

Why your teen stays up late, you sleep poorly: new research confirms 'sentinel theory'

krisha Tue, 07/11/2017 - 19:33

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Study says differing sleep schedules between the young and old may be an evolutionary survival tool (photo by Photofusion/UIG via Getty Images)

Nicolle Wahl

Author legacy

Nicolle Wahl

Topic

Global Lens

U of T Mississauga

Research & Innovation

Subheadline

Study of hunter-gatherer sleep patterns shed light on ancestral behaviour

Humans today demonstrate sleep patterns inherited from their hunter-gatherer ancestors, says new research by David Samson, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto Mississauga.

In their paper, published in the latest issue of Proceedings B, Samson and his colleagues from Duke University, the University of Nevada Las Vegas and the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, are the first researchers to confirm that the 1966 “sentinel theory” is applicable to humans. The theory suggests that among group-dwelling animals, there should be mechanisms that ensure various members of the group are awake at almost all times, in order to protect others who are in more vulnerable states (such as being asleep).

In other words, due to natural variation in sleep timing, members of the group serve as sentinels, alert to potential dangers, such as attacks from other hostile groups or animals.

“This hypothesis has never been tested in humans before,” says Samson.

Researchers travelled to rural Tanzania to study the sleep patterns of the hunter-gatherer Hadza tribe (photo courtesy of David Samson)

The research is making headlines around the world.

Read The Guardian

Although most human sleep research to date has taken place in laboratories under artificial conditions, Samson and his colleagues took their equipment and tests to rural Tanzania, where the hunter-gatherer Hadza tribe “lives in the same savannah grasslands that our ancestors had to overcome to adapt,” Samson says. With very little – if any – aid from industrially-produced equipment or tools, the Hadza hunt and gather on foot using bows, digging sticks and axes.

“It’s the best current window into our evolution,” says Samson (pictured below).

Using actigraphs, which are Fitbit-like, wrist-worn devices that measure light and activity, the researchers discovered that among the 33 men and women studied, there were only 18 minutes out of 13,000 total minutes that everyone in the group was asleep. In addition, they found that 40 per cent of the group was awake at any given time.

The researchers also determined that variation in chronotype – defined as the individual propensity to sleep at a particular time during a 24-hour period – was driven by age. While the younger Hadza tended to be “owls” who stayed up late – relatively standard during the courtship and mating years – the elders tended toward “lark” behavior, waking early and perhaps sleeping poorly.

“Researchers have theorized that one of the reasons grandparents live so long past their reproductive years is that their function is to take care of grandchildren,” Samson says. “Our hypothesis is that their lark behaviour and shorter sleep times serve a function: the elders serve as sentinels at the times of day when others are sleeping. Therefore, it’s important to have people of all ages in any population.”

Additionally, the researchers have discovered the Hadza to be characterized by flexible sleep patterns, demonstrated by their ability to respond to different ecological, social and technological factors influencing sleep throughout a 24-hour period. This behaviour is similar to that found in Western populations. For example, people in North America adjust sleeping in a new environment, such as a hotel room, by shifting to a greater reliance on sleep in one brain hemisphere and increasing the other hemisphere’s sensitivity to deviant stimuli such as noise or light.

Samson also notes that it may not be as necessary to view sleep variation with the concern it receives in Western societies.

“While we tend to look at every deviation from the normal sleep pattern as a problem, it may just be part of human variation,” he says. “We are seeking to fill in a piece of the evolutionary puzzle.”

How much sleep do you really need? That depends: how old are you?

sgupta — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 12:00:37 +0000

How much sleep do you really need? That depends: how old are you? sgupta Wed, 02/11/2015 - 07:00

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U of T's John Peever is one of the experts selected for the multidisciplinary panel that examined hundreds of studies to determine how much sleep people need at every stage of life (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Michael Kennedy

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Michael Kennedy

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Breaking Research

Back to school: the ABCs of getting 40 winks

sgupta — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 12:01:41 +0000

Back to school: the ABCs of getting 40 winks sgupta Tue, 09/02/2014 - 08:01

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Catching up on sleep you missed during a school night works for some but for others, erratic sleep can cause problems, says Shelly Weiss (photo by Dan DeLuca via Flickr)

Erin Howe

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Erin Howe

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Associate Professor Shelly Weiss on helping students get the sleep they need

How early is too early for school?

The American Association of Pediatricians recently recommended middle and high school start times be set no earlier than 8:30 a.m. The organization says the natural sleep cycles of teenagers make it tough for young people to fall asleep before 11 p.m. and difficult for them to “rise and shine” first thing in the morning.

But no matter what time the bell rings at your child’s school, there are ways of encouraging healthy habits to help maximize his or her sleep, says Shelly Weiss, an associate professor in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine. And the amount of shut-eye a young person needs changes with age, Weiss says.

School-aged children generally need between 10 and 11 hours of shut-eye, says Weiss, while adolescents may need an average of 8.5 to 9.5 hours. But she also says there is no magic number that will be suitable for all kids.

“You might have a child who is a short sleeper, who needs less than the average, but they’re doing well during the day. Or you may have a child who is not getting enough sleep for their age, and they’re showing signs of sleepiness during the day,” says Weiss, who is also a neurologist at The Hospital for Sick Children and the author of the book Better Sleep for Your Baby and Child.

Weiss also says that many teenagers don’t realize how much sleep they need.

“Often they’ll stay up later during the week and try to catch up by sleeping in on the weekends,” she says. “For many teenagers and adults, that works fine. But it’s when people aren’t functioning well during the day that they have to look at their sleep habits and see if that erratic sleep is actually causing problems.”

The consequences of not getting enough sleep aren’t limited to fatigue. A child who isn’t sleeping enough may experience problems with memory or learning, have an inability to pay attention or feel irritable or hyperactive. Lack of sleep can also be associated with mental health issues such as depression.

But it isn’t just a question of how much sleep young people get. Weiss also says it’s also a question of how well they are sleeping.

“When children snore, they may have obstructive sleep apnea. If they’re not sleeping in the same bedroom through the night, for example if they fall asleep in their parents’ room and they’re moving rooms back and forth at night, that disrupts the quality of their sleep. So, it’s not just the amount of sleep, but whether it is consolidated, good healthy sleep,” she says.

Weiss’ tips for encouraging healthy sleep habits include:

Setting regular times to go to bed and wake up
Having some exposure to sunlight in the morning and sleeping in a dark bedroom (a night-light is fine)
Maintaining a healthy sleep environment (cool, quiet, free of electronics)
Having a soothing routine to transition from daytime to bedtime
Eating breakfast at around the same time every morning

For more information about sleep for children, visit the Canadian Sleep Society’s website.

Erin Howe is a writer with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto.

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Can't sleep? Blame these neurons

sgupta — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 10:41:58 +0000

Can't sleep? Blame these neurons sgupta Wed, 08/20/2014 - 06:41

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The "sleep switch" that allows animals to nod off is called the ventrolateral preoptic nucleus

Michael Kennedy

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Michael Kennedy

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Breaking Research