Sleep

Introduction: Habitual short sleep duration is associated with adverse metabolic, cardiovascular, and inflammatory effects. Co-twin study methodologies account for familial (eg, genetics and shared environmental) confounding, allowing assessment of subtle environmental effects, such as the effect of habitual short sleep duration on gene expression. Therefore, we investigated gene expression in monozygotic twins discordant for actigraphically phenotyped […]

Study objectives: Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) copy number is an important component of mitochondrial function and varies with age, disease, and environmental factors. We aimed to determine whether mtDNA copy number varies with habitual differences in sleep duration within pairs of monozygotic twins. Setting: Academic clinical research center. Participants: 15 sleep duration discordant monozygotic twin pairs (30 twins, 80% […]

PI: Nathaniel WatsonProject Number: 5K23HL083350Project Dates: 5/01/2007–3/31/2012 This K23 award will allow Dr. Watson to become an investigator proficient in genetic epidemiology and the design and conduct of interdisciplinary research on gene-environment interactions in sleep medicine. The training and research activities will focus on complex environmental and genetic influences on habitual sleep duration and the impact […]