Basic information
Investigator: Mgr. Karolina Janků, Ph.D.
Main recipient: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Research period: 1/5/2024 – 31/12/2027
Total budget: 6,692,000 CZK
Supported by: Czech Health Research Council (AZV ČR)
Annotation
Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder and the second most frequent mental health condition. Studies show a frequent comorbidity of insomnia with other psychological issues. Chronic insomnia can also be a risk factor for the development of severe psychiatric disorders. In the relationship between insomnia and psychiatric problems, impaired emotional regulation, tied to poor REM sleep, plays an important role. However, no study has yet experimentally tested whether the first-line treatment for insomnia improves emotional regulation in these patients. The presented project, therefore, aims to verify the effect of cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) on sleep-related emotional regulation, which will be measured using experiments that evoke self-referential emotions (pride, shame), significantly linked to mental health and illness. The experiments will be conducted before and after a sleep episode (polysomnography) while simultaneously measuring responses using electroencephalography (EEG). Evening-morning experiments will allow an assessment of sleep’s effect on emotional regulation. These experiments will be conducted before and after a six-week CBT-I course. A group of insomnia patients undergoing CBT-I (n=40) will be compared with a control group on a waiting list (WL, n=40). We expect that CBT-I will be associated with improvements in emotional regulation issues and that this change will be related to enhanced REM sleep quality. Another aim is to evaluate the therapy's effect on subjective, somatic (heart rate variability), and cortical (EEG) hyperarousal, a significant symptom of chronic insomnia related to disrupted sleep and emotional regulation. Mapping the effect of CBT-I on emotional regulation will contribute to the development of treatment procedures better tailored to patients and will expand understanding of the complex relationship between sleep, emotional regulation, and mental health.