Maia ten Brink

All Publications

• Pre-sleep affect predicts subsequent REM frontal theta in nonlinear fashion. Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience Ten Brink, M., Yan, Y., Zhang, J., Goldstein-Piekarski, A., Krause, A., Kreibig, S., Manber, R., Gross, J. 2023

  Abstract

  Pre-sleep affect is thought to influence sleep, but associations with both sleep architecture and the electroencephalographic (EEG) power spectrum are mixed. In this pre-registered study, we assessed negative valence and arousal 1h pre-sleep in 52 adults drawn from the community, then recorded one night of polysomnography (PSG) in participants' own homes. Pre-sleep affect was not associated with nonrapid eye movement (NREM) or rapid eye movement (REM) sleep architecture parameters, but we did observe inverted U-shaped relationships between both negative valence and arousal and REM frontal theta power, such that theta power was highest at moderate negative valence and arousal, and lowest at either affective extreme. When entered into a model together, both valence and arousal accounted for independent variance. Secondary analyses revealed a similar quadratic association with pre-sleep positive valence, suggesting a nonspecific effect of pre-sleep valence on REM frontal theta. Robustness checks confirmed that effects were not explained by homeostatic sleep pressure or sleep timing. Our results suggest that mixed findings in the literaturemay reflect different ends of a quadratic function, underscoring the importance of assessing how different components of pre-sleep affect relate to sleep.

  View details for DOI 10.3758/s13415-022-01051-7

  View details for PubMedID 36702991

• Sleep and affect: A conceptual review. Sleep medicine reviews Ten Brink, M., Dietch, J. R., Tutek, J., Suh, S. A., Gross, J. J., Manber, R. 2022; 65: 101670

  Abstract

  Everyday experience suggests that sleep and affect are closely linked, with daytime affect influencing how we sleep, and sleep influencing subsequent affect. Yet empirical evidence for this bidirectional relationship between sleep and affect in non-clinical adult samples remains mixed, which may be due to heterogeneity in both construct definitions and measurement. This conceptual review proposes a granular framework that deconstructs sleep and affect findings according to three subordinate dimensions, namely domains (which are distinct for sleep and affect), methods (i.e., self-report vs. behavioral/physiological measures), and timescale (i.e., shorter vs. longer). We illustrate the value of our granular framework through a systematic review of empirical studies published in PubMed (N=80 articles). We found that in some cases, particularly for sleep disturbances and sleep duration, our framework identified robust evidence for associations with affect that are separable by domain, method, and timescale. However, in most other cases, evidence was either inconclusive or too sparse, resulting in no clear patterns. Our review did not find support for granular bidirectionality between sleep and affect. We suggest a roadmap for future studies based on gaps identified by our review and discuss advantages and disadvantages of our granular dimensional framework.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.smrv.2022.101670

  View details for PubMedID 36088755

• Associations between daily affect and sleep vary by sleep assessment type: What can ambulatory EEG add to the picture? Sleep health Messman, B. A., Slavish, D. C., Dietch, J. R., Jenkins, B. N., Ten Brink, M., Taylor, D. J. 2021

  Abstract

  OBJECTIVE/BACKGROUND: Disrupted sleep can be a cause and a consequence of affective experiences. However, daily longitudinal studies show sleep assessed via sleep diaries is more consistently associated with positive and negative affect than sleep assessed via actigraphy. The objective of the study was to test whether sleep parameters derived from ambulatory electroencephalography (EEG) in a naturalistic setting were associated with day-to-day changes in affect.PARTICIPANTS/METHOD: Eighty adults (mean age=32.65 years, 63% female) completed 7 days of affect and sleep assessments. We examined bidirectional associations between morning positive affect and negative affect with sleep assessed via diary, actigraphy, and ambulatory EEG.RESULTS: Mornings with lower positive affect than average were associated with higher diary- and actigraphy-determined sleep efficiency that night. Mornings with higher negative affect than average were associated with longer actigraphy-determined total sleep time that night. Nights with longer diary-determined total sleep time, greater sleep efficiency, and shorter sleep onset latency than average were associated with higher next-morning positive affect, and nights with lower diary-determined wake-after-sleep-onset were associated with lower next-morning negative affect. EEG-determined sleep and affect results were generally null in both directions: only higher morning negative affect was associated with longer rapid eye movement (REM) sleep that night.CONCLUSIONS: Self-reported sleep and affect may occur in a bidirectional fashion for some sleep parameters. EEG-determined sleep and affect associations were inconsistent but may still be important to assess in future studies to holistically capture sleep. Single-channel EEG represents a novel, ecologically valid tool that may provide information beyond diaries and actigraphy.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.sleh.2020.11.009

  View details for PubMedID 33454245

• Individual Differences in Perceived Sleep Quality Do Not Predict Negative Affect Reactivity or Regulation. Biological psychology Zhang, J., Ten Brink, M., Kreibig, S. D., Gilam, G., Goldin, P. R., Manber, R., Mackey, S., Gross, J. J. 2021: 108149

  Abstract

  Do people who have low-quality sleep tend to have more negative affect? This question is of great public interest, and many would assume the answer is "yes." However, previous findings have been mixed, possibly due to differing measures of sleep and affect, or to a failure to separately examine negative affect reactivity and regulation. Across two studies, we assessed adults' perceived sleep quality for at least two weeks and tested their negative affect reactivity and regulation in response to unpleasant pictures (Study 1) or painful thermal stimulation (Study 2) using both self-report and physiological measures. The relationships between perceived sleep quality, on the one hand, and negative affect reactivity and regulation, on the other, were non-significant. Furthermore, a Bayesian approach unanimously favored the null hypothesis. These results suggest that individual differences in perceived sleep quality may not predict negative affect reactivity or regulation across adult individuals.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2021.108149

  View details for PubMedID 34284070

• Stress, Sleep, and Coping Self-Efficacy in Adolescents. Journal of youth and adolescence Ten Brink, M., Lee, H. Y., Manber, R., Yeager, D. S., Gross, J. J. 2020

  Abstract

  Adults are thought to show a sleep-stress spiral in which greater stress worsens sleep quality, which amplifies stress, which leads to worse sleep. This study examined whether adolescents show a similar spiral, and if so, whether coping self-efficacy-believing one can cope with stress-interrupts the spiral. Temporal dynamics of perceived stress, sleep quality, and coping self-efficacy were tracked in 381 9th graders (49% female, mean age 14.43, age range 14-16) using daily surveys across two school weeks (3184 observations). Though expected associations were evident between individuals, only a unidirectional path was found within individuals from sleep quality to perceived stress via coping self-efficacy. This challenges the conventional bidirectional understanding of sleep-stress relations and suggests coping self-efficacy as an intervention target.

  View details for DOI 10.1007/s10964-020-01337-4

  View details for PubMedID 33141378

• Sleep quality and treatment of social anxiety disorder. Anxiety, stress, and coping Horenstein, A., Morrison, A. S., Goldin, P., Ten Brink, M., Gross, J. J., Heimberg, R. G. 2019: 1–12

  Abstract

  BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Poor sleep is prevalent among individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and may affect treatment outcome. We examined whether: (1) individuals with SAD differed from healthy controls (HCs) in sleep quality, (2) baseline sleep quality moderated the effects of treatment (Cognitive-behavioral group therapy [CBGT] vs. mindfulness-based stress reduction [MBSR] vs. waitlist [WL]) on social anxiety, (3) sleep quality changed over treatment, and (4) changes in sleep quality predicted anxiety 12-months post-treatment.DESIGN: Participants were 108 adults with SAD from a randomized controlled trial of CBGT vs. MBSR vs. WL and 38 HCs.METHODS: SAD and sleep quality were assessed pre-treatment and post-treatment; SAD was assessed again 12-months post-treatment.RESULTS: Participants with SAD reported poorer sleep quality than HCs. The effect of treatment condition on post-treatment social anxiety did not differ as a function of baseline sleep quality. Sleep quality improved in MBSR, significantly more than WL, but not CBGT. Sleep quality change from pre- to post-treatment in CBGT or MBSR did not predict later social anxiety.CONCLUSIONS: MBSR, and not CBGT, improved sleep quality among participants. Other results were inconsistent with prior research; possible explanations, limitations, and implications for future research are discussed. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02036658.

  View details for PubMedID 31082285