Assistant Professor Aarti Nair, PhD's projects at the Neurodevelopmental Applied Imaging Intervention Research Lab (NAIIR Lab) focus on examining neural mechanisms underlying treatment outcomes for children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders.
Currently, the lab in the Department of Psychology is running a funded research study exploring the impact of sleep on cognition and socio-emotional functioning in youth with neurodevelopmental disorders. Schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are heterogeneous conditions that share several overlapping phenotypic features and neurodevelopmental origins. While early detection and clinical diagnosis of both disorders has improved over the past decade, clinically frequent challenges still arise in differential diagnosis. Moreover, both populations experience a significant amount of sleep and sensory processing difficulties (one of the biggest causes of everyday stress for parents) which is vastly understudied across these neurodevelopmental groups.
Exploring the impact of sleep on cognition and socio-emotional functioning in ASD and SSD youth could advance our understanding of sleep difficulties and associated behavioral outcomes, which will ultimately inform treatment. By enhancing our understanding of the association between sleep difficulties, sensory processing, and cognitive/psychiatric outcomes in ASD and SSD youth, we will be able to refine treatment targets and better predict outcomes for each group.
The study involves behavioral and neuroimaging assessments of adolescents, ages 6-18, with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder (SSD). Eligible participants will be invited to visit the NAIIR Lab (Department of Psychology) at Loma Linda University for a one-time assessment visit. Participants will be sent home with an actigraph, a device that measures sleep, which the participating youth will be wearing on their wrist or ankle for a 14-night period. The study will also recruit typically developing youth as control participants to undergo a similar process. Some eligible participants over the age of 10 years will also be asked to undergo a non-invasive brain scan to help us identify the neural basis of sleep disturbances in these neuropsychiatric populations. All participants will be paid for involvement in assessments, actigraphy, and brain scans.
If you are interested in participating in this study, contact the NAIIR Lab via their website or by phone at 909-542-4817.
This study was approved by LLUH IRB (#5210160) on 7/3/23 and 9/5/24.