Assessing Differences in Sleep Recovery From Stimulant Induced Versus non-Pharmacological Sleep Disruption in Young Adult Mice (2023)

Undergraduate: Daniel Reich

Faculty Advisor: Kathryn Harper
Department: Psychiatry

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Researching the effects of stimulant-induced and non-pharmacological sleep disruption in mice could prove useful for understanding similar effects in humans. A 2019 study found that 92 percent of college students consumed caffeine in the past year, with 79 percent stating that they consume caffeine “to feel awake”. (Mahoney et al., 2019). Furthermore, approximately 70 percent of college students report attaining insufficient sleep, which has a strong negative correlation with grades, memory, and mood (Hershner et al., 2014). The first step in determining how we can solve these issues is determining if a return to sufficient sleep (sleep recovery) is hindered by the use of pharmacological agents to stay awake. Eight-week-old male and female mice were placed in a piezoelectric sleep system for eight days. On the sixth day mice were randomly chosen to either undergo nonpharmacological Sleep Disruption (SD) for 3 hours or an injection and returned to their sleep cage. Injections were 3.0mg/kg amphetamine, 12.5mg/kg caffeine, or saline. Non-pharmacological SD consisted of introducing the mice to novel behavioral tasks. We found that the caffeine and amphetamine did have significant effects on the amount of time that the mice slept, in both the male and female groups. Lastly, but perhaps most importantly for our study, we found that, in the early night, mice who underwent lab disruption slept significantly more than those who were not sleep deprived, as well as those who were sleep deprived via the use of stimulants.

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