Research Mission

The general focus of our research at the URSRL is on the reciprocal relationships between sleep quality and quantity and physical and mental health. Within this broad arena, we have targeted interests in sleep in psychiatric disorders, neurocognitive phenomena in insomnia, and the efficacy and mechanisms of action of behavioral therapy and of sedative hypnotics. Some of our more recent research interests within these domains pertain to:

• an assessment of illness severity and variability over time with the end goal of demonstrating that there is a predictable rhythm to when patients experience insomnia and that this is fundamentally related to how sleep is homeostatically regulated.

• the placebo effect as it occurs in insomnia clinical trials and how the episodic nature of insomnia may interact with pill use to 1) reinforce and sustain placebo-related clinical gains and 2) result in increased clinical gains via conditioning.

• the use of partial reinforcement schedules during long term therapy with hypnotics to sustain clinical gains while reducing the amount of medication used to achieve clinical gains.

• an assessment of the effectiveness of CBT-I for insomnia secondary to chronic pain and insomnia secondary to cancer

• the development of a risk factor model for insomnia so that the natural course of the disorder can be empirically assessed.

Long Term Goals

Collaborative Ventures