Development of evening sleep homeostatic pressure in early adolescent boys

Chelsea M. Reynolds*, Michelle A. Short, Michal Kahn, Cele Richardson, Melanie Heath, Hannah Whittall, Leon Lack, Michael Gradisar

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)54-59
Number of pages6
JournalSleep Medicine
Volume110
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2023

Funding

FundersFunder number
AMI Inc.
Australian Research CouncilDP150100215
Flinders University

    Keywords

    • Adolescence
    • Sleep homeostasis
    • Sleep onset latency
    • Sleep pressure

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