A mind at sleep is a mind at rest
Posted on 13/01/2010 | 1 Comments
A recently published study about the relationship between sleep time and depression in teens (http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100111172002/Special-Features/teens-who-dont-get-enough-sleep-risk-depression-and-suicide.html) has many people confused. It was a co-relational study and thus does not confirm causality. So it is not possible to conclude that going to bed late causes depression in adolescents. On the other hand, the study does bring the spotlight back on the well known scientifically but less well appreciated complex relationship between sleep and depression in teens.
We have known for a long time that sleep is disturbed in teen depression. We have also known for a long time that the usual sleep architecture (that is how the different stages of sleep happen during the night) is disturbed in teen depression. We also know that some teens who get depressed show subtle changes in their sleep architecture before they get depressed. Many years ago my research team reported those findings and we also showed that there were abnormalities in hormone secretion at night in depressed teens. And, we know that forced waking early in the morning may improve symptoms in depression. So there is clearly something happening in how the brain controls mood and how it controls sleep.
But, it is simplistic and wrong to assume that setting late bedtimes for teen’s causes depression. This is not the case and it would be foolish to try to tell parents and teens that going to sleep before midnight is protective against depression. However, there is much for us to learn about sleep and depression in teenagers. And there is a growing interest amongst researchers in this area. So stay tuned!
--Stan
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This is a great set of comments and rings very true.
I totally agree that scientists (just like everyone else) have their biases and foibles. After all, scientists are human beings too! But science is different than scientists.
The scientific method is the most objective frame that we have by which to evaluate and predict. Science is not about finding truth. It is only about being less wrong most of the time. The scientific method (experimental design and mathematics) gives us the ability to test what we believe. The scientific method is not used to prove something is correct, on the contrary, the scientific method is designed to prove that something is not correct! It is designed to test what is called the “null hypothesis”. It takes ideas that come out of left field (or wherever else they come from) and puts those ideas to an independent test.
t does not drive our beliefs. It does however challenge our beliefs. In that way it is self-correcting. Of course scientific inquiry and understanding lives within a wider social context. That is one of the great features of science.
But gravity is gravity, social context notwithstanding. And thus it is nasty, brutish and long. As Brecht said, (something like this) - the purpose of science is to save us from everlasting error.
By Christina Carew on May 11th
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Sandy Allen said...
Does the proportion of REM sleep increase towards the end of sleep i.e. towards the morning? What effect does interruption of REM sleep have on depression… short term and long term? Are the early findings of sleep studies from teens different from those of adults?
Comment made on October 19th, 2010
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