1. Development of evening sleep homeostatic pressure in early adolescent boys.
- Author
-
Reynolds CM, Short MA, Kahn M, Richardson C, Heath M, Whittall H, Lack L, and Gradisar M
- Subjects
- Male, Female, Humans, Adolescent, Longitudinal Studies, Wakefulness physiology, Homeostasis physiology, Circadian Rhythm physiology, Sleep physiology
- Abstract
The physiological processes governing sleep regulation show maturational changes during adolescent development. To date, data are available to specify when delays in circadian timing occur; however, no longitudinal data exist to characterize the maturation of the accumulation of sleep pressure across the evening. The aim of this longitudinal study was to test whether this change in evening sleep propensity can be identified during early adolescence. Twenty pre-pubescent boys' (Mage = 10.3, SD = 0.4 years) evening sleep homeostats were assessed using a series of sleep latency tests every hour (7:30 p.m. to 3:30 a.m.) at 6-month intervals across four waves. While results revealed shorter sleep onset latencies with increasing wakefulness (p < .001), this effect was not moderated by study wave (p = .79). Evening sleep propensity thus appears to remain stable in boys during early adolescence. Future studies should expand upon these findings by using larger samples of girls as well as boys across an extended age range during the teenage years., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest None, (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF