Clark, D. B. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2025

Using a wearable EEG device to examine age trends in sleep macro- and micro-architecture across adolescence

Adolescence is a period of distinct maturational changes in sleep physiology. Age-related trends in sleep physiology have been captured using laboratory-based polysomnography, a method limited by logistical burden and high cost. We tested the ability of the accessible Dreem3 sleep EEG headband to replicate established age effects in sleep physiology from late childhood through early adulthood. Typically developing youth (N=100, 9-26 years) completed 3-4 consecutive nights of at-home sleep recording. We estimated age-related trends across eight macro-architecture and 15 micro-architecture variables with known age effects, and conducted exploratory analyses of 24 additional variables. Dreem replicated established age trends, including increases in non-rapid eye movement (NREM) stage 2, and decreases in N3, time in bed, NREM delta and theta power with increasing age. Exploratory analysis revealed age effects in twelve variables, including decreases in spindle activity with increasing age. Sleep EEG wearables offer an accessible way to characterize sleep physiology development.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Alcohol Use Disrupts Age-Appropriate Cortical Thinning in Adolescence: A Data Driven Approach

ObjectiveCortical thickness changes dramatically during development and is influenced by adolescent drinking. However, previous findings have been inconsistent and limited by region-of-interest approaches that are underpowered because they do not conform to the underlying heterogeneity from the effects of alcohol. MethodsAdolescents (n=657; 12-22 years at baseline) from the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) who endorsed little to no alcohol use at baseline were assessed with structural MRI and followed longitudinally at four yearly intervals. Seven unique spatially covarying patterns of cortical thickness were obtained from the baseline scans by applying a novel data-driven method called non-negative matrix factorization (NMF). The cortical thickness maps of all participants longitudinal scans were projected onto vertex-level cortical patterns to obtain participant-specific coefficients for each pattern. Linear mixed-effects models were fit to each pattern to investigate longitudinal effects of alcohol consumption on cortical thickness. ResultsIn most NMF-derived cortical thickness patterns, the longitudinal rate of decline in no/low drinkers was similar for all age cohorts, among moderate drinkers the decline was faster in the younger cohort and slower in the older cohort, among heavy drinkers the decline was fastest in the younger cohort and slowest in the older cohort (FDR corrected p-values < 0.01). ConclusionsThe NMF method can delineate spatially coordinated patterns of cortical thickness at the vertex level that are unconstrained by anatomical features. Age-appropriate cortical thinning is more rapid in younger adolescent drinkers and slower in older adolescent drinkers.

neuroscience↗