The overarching research interest of the Laboratory for Sleep and Behavioral Neuroscience is better understanding the role that sleep, sleep deprivation, and sleep disorders play in daytime function, including cognitive abilities, mental health symptoms, and quality of life.

We are interested in the role and possible benefits of both overnight sleep and daytime naps. We study both natural sleep, the effects of various medications and drugs on sleep, and recovery sleep after sleep deprivation.

We study both experimental sleep deprivation and sleep loss (i.e., bring people into the lab and either make them stay awake or not allow them to get enough sleep) and examples of sleep loss that occur in everyday life. For example, we study sleep in older adults, people with insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea, traumatic brain injury, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

We are interested in the way sleep, sleep deprivation, and sleep disorders relate to many different types of daytime function. One of the biggest areas of daytime function we study is cognitive performance. For example, we look at how sleep loss (experimental or real world) and sleep disorders impact our learning and memory, influence our decision making, and alter our working memory abilities (the ability to hold information on-line and do something with that information), and other “higher order” cognitive functions. Additionally, we are interested in the positive benefits of sleep. For example, we examine how sleep, especially daytime naps, benefits learning, memory, and creativity.

We are also very interested in the interaction of sleep and mental health. This is especially true when it comes to PTSD. Many people who have experienced a trauma and have symptoms of PTSD also have frequent, distressing nightmares and insomnia. We are interested in how these problems impact the other daytime symptoms of PTSD and, importantly, how treating nightmares and insomnia can improve not only sleep at night, but also help people feel and function better during the day.

Please see here for descriptions of the research studies for which we are currently seeking participants.

Our clinical work

At the VA hospital, Dr. Drummond and Dr. Nappi run a clinic where we treat Veterans with sleep disorders (nightmares and insomnia) and Veterans with mood disorders (depression and bipolar). We deliver a variety of evidence based interventions, including Imagery Rehearsal Therapy (IRT) for nightmares, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for depression and bipolar, Dialectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT) for depression, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Chronic Suicidal Ideation and Suicidal Behavior. Dr. Nappi is additionally involved in the Dialectic Behavioral Therapy Program where they treat Veterans with Borderline Personality Disorder. We also train future psychologists through this clinic who are part of the SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program, the UCSD-VA Psychology Internship Training Program, and the VA Postdoctoral Fellowship in Evidence-Based Psychotherapy.