ABOUT US
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RESEARCH
Research questions in the lab focus on the development of children, adolescents, and emerging adults, with a particular focus on how sleep influences this development. These questions are motivated by research suggesting that many people do not obtain adequate sleep, and that poor sleep impacts our overall well-being and can lead to the later development of mental health difficulties such as depression and anxiety.
As a result, a primary focus of our research is to understand how sleep patterns shape daytime emotional and social experiences in ways that make us more or less susceptible to mental health problems. Ongoing studies examine how both healthy and unhealthy sleep patterns develop, and how these patterns intersect with daytime functioning including how we respond to reward, emotion regulation, stress reactivity, social interactions and biases, emotional memory, and motivation. We investigate how these processes intersect within various contexts (e.g., community, family, school) and in response to a variety of milestones and experiences (e.g., trauma, life stress, puberty).
Research studies often include multiple methods to assess daytime emotional and social experiences (e.g., behavioral paradigms, psychophysiological and neural responses, ecological momentary assessment) and to assess sleep (EEG-based polysomnography, actigraphy). Our lab ultimately aims to promote healthy psychological functioning and emotional well-being.
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FACILITIES
We have two lab spaces located at 201 AJM Johnson Hall and 205 CFT-5 Building on MSU's main campus in Bozeman, MT. Our facilities include a two bedroom sleep lab fully equipped with polysomnography, private bathrooms, showers, a kitchen, and office and conference space. We also have a separate lab space with a comfortable apartment style living area and mini-kitchen for sleep deprivation studies and space for behavioral assessments. We have games, toys, and entertainment (TV, movies, iPad games) available for families, children, and siblings during assessments. We also have free parking available for participating families, and meals and snacks are typically provided during overnight stays.
Our lab is fully equipped with Philips and Ambulatory Monitoring actigraphy watches to measure objective sleep patterns, and our lab space includes polysomnography to conduct both attended in-lab (Natus Embla NDx) or unattended full ambulatory sleep studies (SOMNO HD, Somnomedics). Our assessment space also includes a room equipped for behavioral and psychophysiological testing, including audio and video recording, and a Biopac MP150 wireless system to record measures such as heart rate, respiration, cardiac impedance, and electrodermal activity from individuals or during dyadic interaction tasks. Through a collaboration with MSU's Center for Mental Health Research and Recovery, some of our research also includes assessments of daytime EEG patterns (ATLAS Neurophysiology System, Neuralynx).
