Assessing sleep, cognition and overnight memory performance in neurotypically developing youth in a children's hospital.

Abstract

Childhood and adolescence are times of significant maturation for cognitive abilities and cortical neurophysiology, and changes in sleep brain activity across development reflect these maturation trajectories. Furthermore, sleep is known to support changes in cognition across the lifespan, including in domains of memory, emotion regulation and executive functioning. Driven by our interest in establishing mechanistic links between changes in sleep neurophysiology and cognitive/mood symptoms in pediatric populations, we aim to establish research protocols for examining sleep-dependent cognition in a wide range of pediatric populations. As a first step, we have established a data acquisition protocol that pairs measurement of overnight memory changes with polysomnography involving a full electroencephalography (EEG) montage and standardized clinical assessments of cognition. While this is typical of a cognitive sleep laboratory, we are now executing it in the context of a pediatric hospital. The protocol is essential in creating an inclusive research program where children and adolescents with a range of conditions can participate in research in a context that is safe and tailored to their needs (a sleep center in a pediatric hospital). This article describes our first protocol, developed for typically developing youth aged 8-19 years, including collection of subjective and objective measures of sleep and cognition, emotion regulation and executive functioning, and overnight changes in memory performance. We also share strategies for ensuring data quality in our protocol.