Different kinds of daytime sleepiness and heart health

Dissecting heterogeneity of excessive daytime sleepiness and impact on cardiovascular diseases

NIH-funded research Brigham and Women's Hospital · NIH-11071953

This research looks at different types of daytime sleepiness and how they may be linked to heart disease using sleep recordings and genetic data for people with excessive sleepiness.

Quick facts

Grant typeR01 grant
Study typeNIH-funded research
Funding institutionBrigham and Women's Hospital NIH-funded
Lab location1 site (Boston, United States)
Project IDNIH-11071953 on NIH RePORTER

What this research studies

If you have excessive daytime sleepiness, this project aims to sort that sleepiness into two types—sleep propensity (long, consolidated sleep) and sleep fragmentation (short, broken sleep)—using wearable activity monitors and overnight EEG recordings. The team will combine these macro- and micro-sleep measurements with genetic and other -omics data from large population groups to find biological and physiological drivers of each subtype. They will also review demographic, behavioral, and clinical information to see which subtypes are linked to worse heart outcomes and which might be modifiable. Much of the work uses existing cohort data but may involve sites that collect new sleep or biospecimen measurements.

Who could benefit from this research

Good fit: Ideal participants are people with excessive daytime sleepiness, especially those willing to provide sleep tracker or overnight EEG data and biospecimens or who are already enrolled in related population cohorts.

Not a fit: People without daytime sleepiness or those unwilling to share sleep data or biological samples are unlikely to benefit directly from this work.

Why it matters

Potential benefit: If successful, this work could identify people whose type of sleepiness raises heart disease risk and point to targeted ways to lower that risk.

How similar studies have performed: Previous research has linked daytime sleepiness to cardiovascular disease and suggested different sleep patterns, but combining EEG-derived sleep subtypes with genomics to test causal links to heart disease is relatively new.

Where this research is happening

Boston, United States

Researchers

About this research

  1. This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
  2. Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
  3. For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.
Conditions Cardiovascular Diseases
Last reviewed 2026-06-13 by the Find a Trial editorial team. Information on this page is for educational purposes and is not medical advice. Always consult qualified healthcare professionals about clinical trial participation.