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Instructor/Advisor

Laura Kurdziel

Keywords

Sleep, Cortisol, Risk-Taking

Abstract

During adolescence, there is a chronotypic shift, biologically driving individuals into being more evening-types as opposed to morning-types. This shift towards being more productive and awake during the evenings often lasts through young adulthood. Given that high school students need to wake up early for school, they are often at high risk of sleep deprivation, with less than 3% of adolescents getting the recommended amount of sleep every night. Given the importance of sleep for emotion regulation and cognitive functions, we investigated whether nocturnal sleep quality, stress, and decision making were related in both adolescents (15-17 years) and young adults (18-35 years). To measure sleep, a sleep profiler headband is used in order to collect sleep staging from three frontal electrodes. To test for cortisol levels, a hormone associated with both sleep behavior and stress responses, 4 saliva samples are taken via a passing drooling method to assess the morning cortisol awakening response. Risk-taking behavior is recorded using the Balloon Emotional Learning Task (BELT), in which participants are asked to gain points by blowing up balloons of varying material as large as possible without popping. Based on the material of each balloon, some balloons are more risky to inflate. The overall objective of the RiSC study is to find if risk-taking behavior is impacted by sleep and if the cortisol awakening response plays a role in risk-taking behavior.

RiSC: Risk-taking, Sleep, and Cortisol

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