Ricerc@Sapienza

Introduction: Some empirical data and clinical observation suggest that people with chronic insomnia have difficulties in assertiveness. However, the literature on this relationship is very poor. Some studies show that low assertiveness is linked to higher severity of depression. Additionally, several studies support the role of insomnia in predicting the onset of depression. The aim of this exploratory cross-sectional study is to evaluate if assertiveness predicts depression directly and/or indirectly through the mediation of insomnia.

Study Objectives: We aimed to compare 2-year-old children born preterm with children born full term regarding: (1) sleep characteristics, (2) temperament,
and (3) relations between sleep pattern and habits and temperament.
Methods: The study included 51 preterm children with normal cognitive, language, and motor development (mean = 20.94 months, standard deviation
[SD] = 4.08) and 57 full-term children (mean = 21.19, SD = 4.32). To assess sleep-related difficulties and habits and child temperament, mothers completed

Sleep is a naturally occurring physiological state that is required to sustain physical and mental health. Traditionally viewed as strictly regulated by top-down control mechanisms, sleep is now known to also originate locally. Glial cells are emerging as important contributors to the regulation of sleep-wake cycles, locally and among dedicated neural circuits.

Resting-state connectivity has been widely studied in the healthy and pathological brain. Less well-characterized are the brain networks altered during pharmacological interventions and their possible interaction with vigilance. In the hopes of finding new biomarkers which can be used to identify cortical activity and cognitive processes linked to the effects of drugs to treat neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, the analysis of networks altered by medication would be particularly interesting.

Short and long sleep duration have been associated with risk of obesity in children and adolescents. Evidence in adults is more mixed, with biological and psychosocial factors underlying these relationships mostly unknown. This review aimed at qualitatively and quantitatively summarizing previous studies on sleep duration as a predictor of obesity in adults in order to provide an update of the state of art in this field and clarify these relationships. Odds ratios at 95% Confidence Intervals (CI) were estimated using random-effects models.

Study Objectives Sleep is altered at high altitude leading many mountaineers to use hypnotics in order to improve sleep efficiency. While after a full night at altitude the short-acting hypnotic zolpidem does not appear to alter cognitive function, residual adverse effects should be considered following early waking-up as performed by mountaineers. We hypothesized that zolpidem intake at high altitude would alter cognitive function 4 hours after drug intake.