How sleep affects anxious teens' tendency to generalize negative memories
Sleep-dependent Negative Overgeneralization in Adolescent Anxiety
This project studies how sleep and brain changes in adolescence relate to anxious teens remembering and reacting to negative events.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Florida International University NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Miami, United States) |
| Project ID | NIH-11247573 on NIH RePORTER |
What this research studies
You would join a group of adolescents who are followed over several years with overnight sleep recordings, brain scans, and memory and emotion tests. Researchers will compare brain activity in areas like the amygdala and hippocampus during sleep and when you view or recall emotional images. The team will look for patterns that explain why some teens with anxiety keep reacting strongly to negative experiences. By tracking the same people across adolescence, they hope to see how sleep and brain development change over time and link to emotional health.
Who could benefit from this research
Good fit: Adolescents roughly between 10 and 20 years old, especially those with elevated anxiety, sleep problems, or trouble with negative memories, would be ideal candidates.
Not a fit: People outside the adolescent age range (younger children or older adults) or those without anxiety-related memory issues are unlikely to benefit directly from participating.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could point to sleep- or brain-targeted ways to reduce anxiety and lessen harmful overgeneralization of negative memories in teens.
How similar studies have performed: Previous studies have linked sleep and amygdala reactivity to emotional memory, and this grant builds on earlier R01 findings by following participants over time, making the approach an extension rather than entirely untested new therapy.
Where this research is happening
Miami, United States
- Florida International University — Miami, United States (Active)
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Mattfeld, Aaron — Florida International University
- Study coordinator: Mattfeld, Aaron
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.