A headband for sleep could reduce sleep times and make rest more effective | Blue sky science

Brady Riedner, deputy director of the institute, said he hoped that the headband could help improve the rest of sleep deprived adolescents, super-performers, elderly populations whose sleep quality decreases and even astronauts, who are in a difficult environment for sleep.

"If you can make sleep more efficient, people will not need to sleep that long, and when they wake up they'll feel better," Riedner said.

UW-Madison is one of two test sites in a NASA-funded study scheduled to begin in the coming weeks to determine whether the headband can help astronauts sleep more deeply and improve their cognitive performance.

The soft and light headband is already a commercial product called the SmartSleep Deep Sleep headband that consumers can buy at Philips for around $ 400. It was published in the fall of last year.

Gary Garcia-Molina, a scientist at Philips and part of the UW-Madison lab, worked closely with researchers to turn their concept into a user-friendly product. The Philips version of the headband is what will be used in the NASA study.

Riedner, co-researcher at NASA's study, said the sounds emitted by the headband are like a "safety signal" for the brain. While we are asleep, our brain unconsciously agrees with our environment to assess potential dangers throughout the night, he added.

"When your brain is going to check the outside world, it hears that sort of thing that sounds like a song, like a metronome," said Riedner. "It's a sign that everything is fine, there's nothing extraordinary to watch out for."

But the sounds are not what you could expect. It's not the sound of a soft rain, a harp, a bubbling cove, a white noise, or Beethoven's 6th symphony, though Riedner claimed to have tried Beethoven.

The sounds emitted by the headband are quick and bright beeps reminiscent of the sound effects of an old arcade game. Stephanie Jones, assistant director at the sleep institute and co-researcher at NASA's study, called them "happy sounds".

The rhythm of the beeps is intended to synchronize with the "slow waves" of the brain that occur during deep sleep, said Riedner.

Slow waves are an electrical signal that the brain emits in the depths of sleep, Jones said. "When people have slower wave activity, their sleep will be more restful and restful," Jones said.

"The more you have slow waves, the deeper you are," Jones said.

When the sound signals from the headband synchronize with slow waves, it encourages the brain to produce more slow waves and sleep more deeply, Jones said.

Riedner said dormant researchers knew that these types of sounds could affect brain waves since the 1940s. But it's a new development to have a device that can track people's brain activity, Determine when they sleep soundly and play the audio tones at the right time to improve their sleep, said Riedner.

The device is also smart enough to stop playing the sounds if the person starts to wake up, said Riedner.

Another novelty is the ability to collect high quality sleep data inside the home rather than in a lab with a range of cords and stickers stuck to a person's head, Jones said.

"The technology already existed, but it has been integrated into a package that allows you to send it home with people and test it. It's relatively new, "said Jones.

In a study, about 30 adults aged 18 to 40 using home technology saw their slow-wave activity increase by about 16%, said Riedner. For some, it meant that they could wake up 15, 30 or sometimes 60 minutes earlier while feeling well rested, said Riedner.

But technology is less effective in older populations, especially men, who have difficulty accessing deep sleep, Riedner said. If the subject does not go into deep sleep, the audio tones are not triggered as often, he added.

Jones said researchers will study if they can get the headband works better for older populations. Jones and Riedner also plan to conduct a study on this topic on the effectiveness of devices in adolescents, whose sleep cycles are often interrupted because they must get up early to go to school.

For the NASA study, 24 people will wear the headband at home while they sleep. They will then perform a series of cognitive tests the next day to see if using the device can improve daytime memory, reaction time, and overall mental performance.

Jones said that even if the device did not work well for older populations or improved cognition, the amount of quality data on sleep that they will be able to collect is "amazing."

Riedner said that almost everything researchers know about sleep comes from studies of people being monitored overnight in a lab, which can be uncomfortable and unnatural.

Because of the band's new design, sleep researchers will finally be able to study "what sleep looks like in the real world," Riedner added.