̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Clare Hall

Adolescents who sleep longer perform better at cognitive tasks

cjb250 — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 15:00:23 +0000

But the study of adolescents in the US also showed that even those with better sleeping habits were not reaching the amount of sleep recommended for their age group.

Sleep plays an important role in helping our bodies function. It is thought that while we are asleep, toxins that have built up in our brains are cleared out, and brain connections are consolidated and pruned, enhancing memory, learning, and problem-solving skills. Sleep has also been shown to boost our immune systems and improve our mental health.

During adolescence, our sleep patterns change. We tend to start going to bed later and sleeping less, which affects our body clocks. All of this coincides with a period of important development in our brain function and cognitive development. ̽��ֱ��American Academy of Sleep Medicine says that the ideal amount of sleep during this period is between eight- and 10-hours’ sleep.

Professor Barbara Sahakian from the Department of Psychiatry at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge said: “Regularly getting a good night’s sleep is important in helping us function properly, but while we know a lot about sleep in adulthood and later life, we know surprisingly little about sleep in adolescence, even though this is a crucial time in our development. How long do young people sleep for, for example, and what impact does this have on their brain function and cognitive performance?”

Studies looking at how much sleep adolescents get usually rely on self-reporting, which can be inaccurate. To get around this, a team led by researchers at Fudan ̽��ֱ��, Shanghai, and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge turned to data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States.

As part of the ABCD Study, more than 3,200 adolescents aged 11-12 years old had been given FitBits, allowing the researchers to look at objective data on their sleep patterns and to compare it against brain scans and results from cognitive tests. ̽��ֱ��team double-checked their results against two additional groups of 13-14 years old, totalling around 1,190 participants. ̽��ֱ��results are published today in Cell Reports.

̽��ֱ��team found that the adolescents could be divided broadly into one of three groups:

Group One, accounting for around 39% of participants, slept an average (mean) of 7 hours 10 mins. They tended to go to bed and fall asleep the latest and wake up the earliest.

Group Two, accounting for 24% of participants, slept an average of 7 hours 21 mins. They had average levels across all sleep characteristics.

Group Three, accounting for 37% of participants, slept an average of 7 hours 25 mins. They tended to go to bed and fall asleep the earliest and had lower heart rates during sleep.

Although the researchers found no significant differences in school achievement between the groups, when it came to cognitive tests looking at aspects such as vocabulary, reading, problem solving and focus, Group Three performed better than Group Two, which in turn performed better than Group One.

Group Three also had the largest brain volume and best brain functions, with Group One the smallest volume and poorest brain functions.

Professor Sahakian said: “Even though the differences in the amount of sleep that each group got was relatively small, at just over a quarter-of-an-hour between the best and worst sleepers, we could still see differences in brain structure and activity and in how well they did at tasks. This drives home to us just how important it is to have a good night’s sleep at this important time in life.”

First author Dr Qing Ma from Fudan ̽��ֱ�� said: “Although our study can’t answer conclusively whether young people have better brain function and perform better at tests because they sleep better, there are a number of studies that would support this idea. For example, research has shown the benefits of sleep on memory, especially on memory consolidation, which is important for learning.”

̽��ֱ��researchers also assessed the participants’ heart rates, finding that Group Three had the lowest heart rates across the sleep states and Group One the highest. Lower heart rates are usually a sign of better health, whereas higher rates often accompany poor sleep quality like restless sleep, frequent awakenings and excessive daytime sleepiness.

Because the ABCD Study is a longitudinal study – that is, one that follows its participants over time – the team was able to show that the differences in sleep patterns, brain structure and function, and cognitive performance, tended be present two years before and two years after the snapshot that they looked at.

Senior author Dr Wei Cheng from Fudan ̽��ֱ�� added: “Given the importance of sleep, we now need to look at why some children go to bed later and sleep less than others. Is it because of playing videogames or smartphones, for example, or is it just that their body clocks do not tell them it’s time to sleep until later?”

̽��ֱ��research was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China, National Postdoctoral Foundation of China and Shanghai Postdoctoral Excellence Program. ̽��ֱ��ABCD Study is supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Reference

Ma, Q et al. Neural correlates of device-based sleep characteristics in adolescents. Cell Reports; 22 Apr 2025; DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2025.115565

Adolescents who sleep for longer – and from an earlier bedtime – than their peers tend to have improved brain function and perform better at cognitive tests, researchers from the UK and China have shown.

Even though the differences in the amount of sleep that each group got was relatively small, we could still see differences in brain structure and activity and in how well they did at tasks

Barbara Sahakian

harpazo_hope (Getty Images)

Teenager asleep and wrapped in a blanket

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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10 Cambridge AI spinouts

skbf2 — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 15:20:09 +0000

Meet 10 Cambridge spinouts, all hoping to harness the potential of AI for the good of the planet and its people.

Psychedelic medicine could revolutionise how we treat mental illness

lkm37 — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 08:26:40 +0000

Dr. Ayla Selamoglu is an expert on psychedelic medicine. Her work shows how nature’s most mysterious compounds provide new ways to combat mental illness.

Loneliness linked to higher risk of heart disease and stroke and susceptibility to infection

cjb250 — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Researchers from the UK and China drew this conclusion after studying proteins from blood samples taken from over 42,000 adults recruited to the UK Biobank. Their findings are published today in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

Social relationships play an important role in our wellbeing. Evidence increasingly demonstrates that both social isolation and loneliness are linked to poorer health and an early death. Despite this evidence, however, the underlying mechanisms through which social relationships impact health remain elusive.

One way to explore biological mechanisms is to look at proteins circulating in the blood. Proteins are molecules produced by our genes and are essential for helping our bodies function properly. They can also serve as useful drug targets, allowing researchers to develop new treatments to tackle diseases.

A team led by scientists at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, UK, and Fudan ̽��ֱ��, China, examined the ‘proteomes’ – the suite of proteins – in blood samples donated by over 42,000 adults aged 40-69 years who are taking part in the UK Biobank. This allowed them to see which proteins were present in higher levels among people who were socially isolated or lonely, and how these proteins were connected to poorer health.

̽��ֱ��team calculated social isolation and loneliness scores for individuals. Social isolation is an objective measure based on, for example, whether someone lives alone, how frequently they have contact with others socially, and whether they take part in social activities. Loneliness, on the other hand, is a subjective measure based on whether an individual feels lonely.

When they analysed the proteomes and adjusted for factors such as age, sex and socioeconomic background, the team found 175 proteins associated with social isolation and 26 proteins associated with loneliness (though there was substantial overlap, with approximately 85% of the proteins associated with loneliness being shared with social isolation). Many of these proteins are produced in response to inflammation, viral infection and as part of our immune responses, as well as having been linked to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and early death.

̽��ֱ��team then used a statistical technique known as Mendelian randomization to explore the causal relationship between social isolation and loneliness on the one hand, and proteins on the other. Using this approach, they identified five proteins whose abundance was caused by loneliness.

Dr Chun Shen from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Fudan ̽��ֱ��, said: “We know that social isolation and loneliness are linked to poorer health, but we’ve never understood why. Our work has highlighted a number of proteins that appear to play a key role in this relationship, with levels of some proteins in particular increasing as a direct consequence of loneliness.

Professor Jianfeng Feng from the ̽��ֱ�� of Warwick said: "There are more than 100,000 proteins and many of their variants in the human body. AI and high throughput proteomics can help us pinpoint some key proteins in prevention, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis in many human diseases and revolutionise the traditional view of human health.

" ̽��ֱ��proteins we’ve identified give us clues to the biology underpinning poor health among people who are socially isolated or lonely, highlighting why social relationships play such an important part in keeping us healthy.”

One of the proteins produced in higher levels as a result of loneliness was ADM. Previous studies have shown that this protein plays a role in responding to stress and in regulating stress hormones and social hormones such as oxytocin – the so-called ‘love hormone’ – which can reduce stress and improve mood.

̽��ֱ��team found a strong association between ADM and the volume of the insula, a brain hub for interoception, our ability to sense what's happening inside our body – the greater the ADM levels, the smaller the volume of this region. Higher ADM levels were also linked to lower volume of the left caudate, a region involved in emotional, reward, and social processes. In addition, higher levels of ADM were linked to increased risk of early death.

Another of the proteins, ASGR1, is associated with higher cholesterol and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, while other identified proteins play roles in the development of insulin resistance, atherosclerosis (‘furring’ of the arteries) and cancer progression, for example.

Professor Barbara Sahakian from the Department of Psychiatry at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge said: “These findings drive home the importance of social contact in keeping us well. More and more people of all ages are reporting feeling lonely. That’s why the World Health Organization has described social isolation and loneliness as a ‘global public health concern’. We need to find ways to tackle this growing problem and keep people connected to help them stay healthy.”

̽��ֱ��research was supported by the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China, China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, Shanghai Rising-Star Program, National Key R&D Program of China, Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project, 111 Project, Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Technology, and Zhangjiang Lab.

Reference
Shen, C et al. Plasma proteomic signatures of social isolation and loneliness associated with morbidity and mortality. Nat Hum Behav; 3 Jan 2025; DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-02078-1

Interactions with friends and family may keep us healthy because they boost our immune system and reduce our risk of diseases such as heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes, new research suggests.

More and more people of all ages are reporting feeling lonely. We need to find ways to tackle this growing problem and keep people connected to help them stay healthy

Barbara Sahakian

Noah Silliman

Person looking out through window

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Boost your life in 2025: Top tips for a healthier body and mind from Cambridge experts

jg533 — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 09:16:07 +0000

Five Cambridge experts share their top tips on ways to boost your body and mind, backed up by their own research

Cambridge confers honorary degrees

ps748 — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 12:57:37 +0000

̽��ֱ��Chancellor, Lord Sainsbury of Turville, presided over a special congregation at the Senate House which was attended by around 400 staff, students, alumni and invited guests. ̽��ֱ��honorary graduands this year were:

Professor Dame Carol Black (Doctor of Medical Science) – From 2012-2019 Dame Carol was Principal of Newnham College and is now an Honorary Fellow of both Newnham and Lucy Cavendish Colleges. A clinician and medical scientist, Carol is a rheumatologist and renowned authority on the condition scleroderma. She was President of the Royal College of Physicians and has advised the UK Government on areas of public health policy.

Professor Stephen Stahl (Doctor of Medical Science) – A psychiatrist and psychopharmacologist, Stephen is Clinical Professor of Health Sciences at the ̽��ֱ�� of California Riverside, US. He is a former Visiting Fellow of Clare Hall and Honorary Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry.

Professor Adele Diamond (Doctor of Science) – A world leading neuroscientist, Adele is Professor of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience at the ̽��ֱ�� of British Colombia, Canada. Her work has led to improvements in treatments for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Professor Dame Carol Robinson (Doctor of Science)– Carol is Dr Lee's Professor of Chemistry at the ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford and founding director of the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery. Formerly President of the Royal Society of Chemistry she is an alumna and an Honorary Fellow of Churchill College.

Professor Kip Thorne (Doctor of Science) – Kip is Richard P Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics Emeritus at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), US. In 2017 he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. He is also a winner of the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics and a celebrated author.

Professor ̽��ֱ��Hon Michael Ignatieff (Doctor of Letters) – A historian, writer and broadcaster, Michael is also a former politician having led the Liberal Party in his native Canada from 2008 to 2011. A member of the Canadian Privy Council and the Order of Canada he has won the Heinemann, Orwell and Dan David Prizes.

Murray Perahia (Doctor of Music) – Murray is a world-renowned pianist whose interpretations of Brahms, Beethoven, Chopin and Schubert have gained great acclaim. He is Principal Guest Conductor of the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields and the winner of three Grammy Awards. He was appointed an Honorary KBE in 2004 and is an Honorary Fellow of Jesus College.

Kip Thorne summed up the day:

"Early in my career the 3 places which were the most important to me in terms of the colleagues I had were Cambridge, Moscow and the place I came from, Princeton. Cambridge, being home to good friends like Stephen Hawking and Martin Rees, was a special place...for me this is just tremendous to receive this honour from the place that has had such a big impact on my career."

And Dame Carol Black said:

"It almost feels unreal...I'm just so pleased and humbled by it. Nothing better could have happened to me. I'm not a Cambridge or Oxford graduate so I never thought this would happen. This is such a wonderful day and it's been lovely to see some of the people I knew when I was here as Head of House."

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� has conferred honorary degrees to seven distinguished individuals in recognition of the achievements they have made in their respective fields. An honorary doctorate is the highest accolade the ̽��ֱ�� can bestow.

This is just tremendous to receive this honour from the place that has had such a big impact on my career

Kip Thorne

Paul Seagrove

Honorary graduands

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Clare Hall, Cambridge and LUT ̽��ֱ��, Finland sign agreement on fellowships and global climate prize

plc32 — Tue, 28 May 2024 15:11:40 +0000

Clare Hall, Cambridge and LUT ̽��ֱ��, Finland, establish a Visiting Fellowship programme and joint Global Prize for Solutions to Climate Change Threats. Please read more about this story here

We very much look forward to welcoming high-flying academics from LUT over the years to come to our unique interdisciplinary research community

Clare Hall President Alan Short

Credit/Clare Hall

LUT Rector Juha-Matti Saksa and Clare Hall President President Alan Short and signing the joint agreement

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One in two children with ADHD experience emotional problems, study finds

cjb250 — Wed, 22 May 2024 08:00:15 +0000

In research published in Nature Mental Health, the team found that as many as one in two children with ADHD show signs of emotional dysregulation, and that Ritalin – the commonly-prescribed drug to help the condition – appears to be less effective at treating this symptom.

ADHD affects around one in 14 young people under the age of 18 and in around half of these cases it persists into adulthood. ̽��ֱ��condition causes problems including hyperactivity, impulsivity and a difficulty to focus attention.

It has become increasingly clear that some people with ADHD also have self-control problems, affecting their ability to regulate emotions. For example, one in 50 (2.1%) children with a diagnosis of ADHD also have a mood disorder, such as depression, while more than one in four (27.4%) have an anxiety disorder. Many also have verbal or physical outbursts due to an inability to regulate their emotions.

These problems were thought to be a result of other symptoms associated with ADHD, such as problems with cognition and motivation. But today’s study shows that emotional dysregulation occurs independently of these.

̽��ֱ��researchers examined data from the ABCD Study, a large longitudinal cohort that tracks the brain development and mental health of children from across the United States. Data on ADHD symptoms was available for just over 6,000 of these children, allowing the researchers to attribute a score to each individual indicating their likelihood of having ADHD.

A team of scientists from Fudan ̽��ֱ�� in Shanghai, China, and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge identified 350 individuals within the cohort who had high symptom scores that met the clinical cut-off for ADHD. Two-thirds (65.7%) of these were male.

Parents or guardians of the children and adolescents in the cohort had previously completed a series of questionnaires, which included questions that related to emotional behaviour, for example:

When my child is upset, he/she has difficulty controlling his/her behaviours.

When my child is upset, he/she knows that he/she can find a way to eventually feel better.

When my child is upset, he/she starts to feel very bad about him/herself.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that half (51.4%) of the individuals in the high-symptom group showed signs of emotion dysregulation and this was independent of cognitive and motivational problems.

Among children with only low-ADHD symptoms at both ages 12 and 13 years, those with a high scores of emotion dysregulation at age 13 years were 2.85 times more likely to have developed high-ADHD symptoms by age 14 years compared with those with a low score of emotion dysregulation.

When the researchers examined brain imaging data available for some of the participants, they discovered a particular region of the brain known as the pars orbitalis that was smaller among children who scored highly for ADHD and emotional problems. ̽��ֱ��pars orbitalis is at the front of the brain and plays an important role in understanding and processing of emotion and communication as well as inhibitory control over behaviour, which may explain some of the behaviours seen in ADHD.

Professor Barbara Sahakian from the Department of Psychiatry at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and a Fellow of Clare Hall said: “ ̽��ֱ��pars orbitalis is a well-connected part of the brain, and if it hasn’t developed properly it might make it difficult for individuals to control their emotions and communicate with others appropriately, especially in social situations.

“Parents and teachers often say they have problems controlling children with ADHD, and it could be that when the children can’t express themselves well – when they hit emotional difficulties – they may not be able to control their emotions and have an outburst rather than communicating with the parent, teacher or the other child.”

Professor Sahakian hopes that acknowledging emotion dysregulation as a key part of ADHD will help people better understand the problems the child is experiencing. This could lead to using effective treatments for regulation of emotion, such as cognitive behavioural therapy.

̽��ֱ��findings may also point to potential ways to help the child manage their emotions, for example by using cognitive behavioural techniques to learn to stop and think before they react and to express their feelings verbally, or use techniques such as exercise or relaxation to calm themselves or alleviate symptoms of depression and anxiety.

This may be particularly important as the researchers found that Ritalin, the drug used to help manage ADHD symptoms, does not appear to fully treat symptoms of emotion dysregulation. Identifying the problem earlier would allow for alternative, more effective interventions to help the child better manage their emotions, potentially helping the individual in adulthood.

Professor Qiang Luo from Fudan ̽��ֱ�� and a Life Member at Clare Hall, Cambridge, said: “If you're having trouble controlling your emotions, this can lead to problems with social interactions, which further exacerbates any depression or anxiety that you might have. It also might mean that you're saying things or doing things that exacerbate a situation rather than calming it down. Teaching vulnerable individuals from an early age how to manage your emotions and express yourself could help them overcome such problems further down the line.”

While it is not clear exactly what causes these problems in the first place, the researchers found signs of a link to possible dysfunction of the immune system, with individuals who exhibited signs of emotion dysregulation showing higher percentages of certain types of immune cell.

Professor Sahakian added: “We already know that problems with the immune system can be linked to depression, and we’ve seen similar patterns in individuals with ADHD who experience emotion dysregulation.”

̽��ֱ��research was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Program of Shanghai Academic Research Leader and the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project.

Reference
Hou, W et al. Emotion dysregulation and right pars orbitalis constitute a neuropsychological pathway to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Nature Mental Health; 13 May 2024: DOI: 10.1038/s44220-024-00251-z

Cambridge scientists have shown that problems regulating emotions – which can manifest as depression, anxiety and explosive outbursts – may be a core symptom of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

When the children can’t express themselves well – when they hit emotional difficulties – they may not be able to control their emotions and have an outburst rather than communicating

Barbara Sahakian

Constantinis (Getty Images)

Teenage boys fighting on way to school

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