Meet the Chronobiology Lab!

Alex reviews sleep data from an Actiwatch, a device
used to monitor participants' sleep, activity, and light intake.

Did you know that many Psychology graduate students collaborate with faculty across our three programs and the broader University? One of these students is Alex Reynolds (Experimental PhD third year, Sumter, SC), who is part of the Chronobiology Lab (Faculty Advisor Dr. Shawn Youngstedt, Exercise Science). The overall aim of the Chronobiology Lab is to conduct studies examining sleep and alternative treatments for combat related PTSD. Alex's fellow lab members include Shannon Crowley (Exercise Science PhD third year, San Juan Capistrano, CA), Kelly Speiran (Exercise Science PhD first year, Richmond, VA), Emily Bowles (Masters Public Health first year, Orlando, FL), and Morgan Hughey (Masters Public Health first year, Gaffney, SC).

Graduate students are currently working on several specialized projects:

1. Alex, Morgan, Emily, and a slew of very impressive undergraduate students are currently busy with a new INTRuST (Injury & Traumatic Stress Consortium) study, which focuses on exercise as a treatment for combat-related PTSD.  Participants undergo MRI scanning at the McCausland Center for Brain Imaging (MCBI) before and after the 8-week therapy program.  Alex is working on the protocol for additional functional MRI scans to look more closely at the cognitive aspect in exercise and PTSD.

2. Alex is also finishing up a lesion symptom mapping study, which focused linking motor deficits to damaged brain areas in stroke patients (under guidance of Dr. Jen Vendemia, Experimental Psych, and Dr. Stacy Fritz, Exercise Science; in collaboration with Denise Peters, Exercise Science). She is also working on a pilot study examining the effects of extended sleep on mental and physiological health (contact cooleyam@gmail.com for more information).

Morgan receiving bright light therapy

3. Alex, Kelly, and Shannon are also heavily involved in a study that uses bright light as a treatment for combat related PTSD, which will wrap up in December 2011.  We are currently recruiting veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and/or Afghanistan who have symptoms of PTSD (contact Alex at cooleyam@gmail.com for more information).

3. Kelly and Morgan are working on a new study examining the effects of chronic moderate sleep restriction in older men and women.  This study will incorporate a new website to collect questionnaire data, furthering the lab's efforts to go green!

4. The entire lab is focused on a soldier health disparities study, which will examine health disparities including sleep and mental health during basic training.  This is a large study that is aimed at collecting information from over a thousand soldiers.

Emily admiring the sleep room equipment

5. Shannon has been busy in the lab working on a pilot study for new mothers and using bright light as a treatment for depression, which also involves fMRI scanning at the MCBI.  She has also just submitted an R01 grant on a similar topic.

6. Alex recently returned from a very intense two week fMRI training program sponsored by the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI).  She acquired several tools from the program, ranging from Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) to exciting and up and coming resting state functional connectivity analyses.