Eus J W Van Someren

Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience | NIN · Van Someren Research Group for Sleep & Cognition

Insomnia disorder has been associated with poor executive functioning. Functional imaging studies of executive functioning in insomnia are scarce and inconclusive. Because the Attentional Network Test relies on well‐defined cortical networks and sensitively distinguishes different aspects of executive function, it might reveal brain functional alte...

Insomnia disorder (ID) is the second most common neuropsychiatric disorder. Its socioeconomic burden is enormous while diagnosis and treatment are difficult. A novel approach that reveals associations between insomnia genetic propensity and sleep phenotypes in youth may help understand the core of the disease isolated from comorbidities and pave th...

For years, the subject of sleep failed to generate much interest from either the field of medicine or that of psychology – a curious fact, as a 60-year-old has spent some 20 years out of those 60 sleeping. In fact, up until the age of approximately 3 years, a child spends more time asleep than awake. It would be an extraordinary evolutionary oversi...

Study Objectives The objective assessment of insomnia has remained difficult. Multisensory devices collecting heart rate (HR) and motion are regarded as the future of ambulatory sleep monitoring. Unfortunately, reports on altered average HR or heart rate variability (HRV) during sleep in insomnia are equivocal. Here, we evaluated whether the object...

Objectives To investigate the association between self-reported sleep bruxism and insomnia and their potential risk factors (e.g., depression and anxiety), and to construct a network model with all these factors. Methods We recruited 2251 participants from the Netherlands Sleep Registry. All participants completed questionnaires on self-reported s...

Neuroimaging and genetics studies have advanced our understanding of the neurobiology of sleep and its disorders. However, individual studies usually have limitations to identifying consistent and reproducible effects, including modest sample sizes, heterogeneous clinical characteristics and varied methodologies. These issues call for a large‐scale...

Background Insomnia is a common and debilitating disorder that is frequently associated with important consequences for physical health and well‐being. Methods An international expert group considered the current state of knowledge based on the most relevant publications in the previous 5 years, discussed the current challenges in the field of ins...

The COVID-19 pandemic imposes a long period of stress on people worldwide and has been shown to significantly affect sleep duration across different populations. However, decreases in sleep quality rather than duration are associated with adverse mental health effects. Additionally, the one third of the general population suffering from poor sleep...

The central nervous system senses and responds to afferent signals arising from the body. These interoceptive afferents are essential to physiological homeostatic control and are known to influence an individual’s momentary affect, cognition, motivation, and conscious experiences. Both sleep and interoception are tightly connected to physical and m...

Objectif L’objectif de cette étude était de décrire les corrélats neuronaux de la performance de conduite chez des patients atteints d’insomnie. Méthodes Les données issues d’une tâche en conduite automobile monotone ont été acquises pendant l’enregistrement de l’activité cérébrale en imagerie par resonance magnetique fonctionnelle (IRMf). Au tota...

Introduction Guidelines recommend cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) as the first line of treatment for insomnia in general practice, but CBT-I is rarely available. Nurse-guided internet-delivered CBT-I might be a solution to improve access to care. Objective We aimed to determine the effectiveness of nurse-guided internet-delivered...

Study objectives Major depressive disorder (MDD) is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Its high recurrence rate calls for prevention of first-onset MDD. While meta-analysis suggested insomnia as the strongest modifiable risk factor, previous studies insufficiently addressed that insomnia might also occur as a residual symptom of unassessed...

A key objective in the field of translational psychiatry over the past few decades has been to identify the brain correlates common to individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD). Identifying measurable indicators of brain processes associated with MDD could facilitate the detection of individuals at risk, and the development of novel treatmen...

Insomnia Disorder is the most prevalent sleep disorder, and it involves both sleep difficulties and daytime complaints. The neural underpinnings of Insomnia Disorder are poorly understood. Several existing neuroimaging studies focused on local measures and specific regions of interests, which makes it difficult to judge their whole‐brain significan...

The modern understanding of sleep is based on the classification of sleep into stages defined by their electroencephalography (EEG) signatures, but the underlying brain dynamics remain unclear. Here we aimed to move significantly beyond the current state-of-the-art description of sleep, and in particular to characterise the spatiotemporal complexit...

Music is often used as a self‐help tool to alleviate insomnia. To evaluate the effect of bedtime music listening as a strategy for improving insomnia, we conducted an assessor‐blinded randomized controlled trial. Fifty‐seven persons with insomnia disorder were included and randomized to music intervention (n = 19), audiobook control (n = 19) or a w...

Insomnia Disorder is the most prevalent sleep disorder and it involves both sleep difficulties and daytime complaints. The neural underpinnings of Insomnia Disorder are poorly understood. Existing neuroimaging studies are limited by their focus on local measures and specific regions of interests. To address this shortcoming, we applied a data-drive...

This poster introduces Network Intervention Analysis (NIA) as a technique to investigate changes in specific individual symptoms over time, as a result of treatment. Treatment is included in the estimated network as a binary node.

Background. There is a growing interest to unravel the genetic and brain structural underpinnings of personality by pooling data for mega- and meta-analyses within international consortia. Consequently, it is of increasing importance to evaluate the consistency of personality traits across assessment formats and languages. In this study, we evaluat...

Maladaptive perfectionism, a transdiagnostic personality trait, is associated with depression. Shame has been associated with depressive disorders and to negatively impact its treatment. Interestingly, maladaptive perfec- tionism and maladaptive shame regulation strategies might be both expressions of an internalizing personality style. We applied...

Insomnia is the second-most prevalent mental disorder, with no sufficient treatment available. Despite a substantial role of genetic factors, only a handful of genes have been implicated and insight into the associated neurobiological pathways remains limited. Here, we use an unprecedented large genetic association sample (N=1,331,010) to allow det...

Introduction Childhood maltreatment (CM) is a highly important but often overlooked predictor of adult sleep problems. Given approximately 40% of individuals experience CM, characterisation of the relationship between CM and adult sleep problems could be particularly useful for identification and early intervention of individuals at risk of develop...

The complaints of people suffering from Insomnia Disorder (ID) concern both sleep and daytime functioning. However, little is known about wake brain temporal dynamics in people with ID. We therefore assessed possible alterations in Long-Range Temporal Correlations (LRTC) in the amplitude fluctuations of band-filtered oscillations in electroencephal...

Meta-analyses and systematic reviews have reported surprisingly few consistent insomnia-characteristics with respect to cognitions, mood, traits, history of life events and family history. One interpretation of this limited consistency is that different subtypes of insomnia exist, each with its own specific multivariate profile of characteristics....

For years, the subject of sleep failed to generate much interest from either the field of medicine or that of psychology – a curious fact, as a 60-year-old has spent some 20 years out of those 60 sleeping. In fact, up until the age of approximately 3 years, a child spends more time asleep than awake. It would be an extraordinary evolutionary oversi...

Melanopsin-containing retinal ganglion cells play an important role in the non-image forming effects of light, through their direct projections on brain circuits involved in circadian rhythms, mood and alertness. Individual differences in the functionality of the melanopsin-signaling circuitry can be reliably quantified using the maximum post-illum...

Study objectives: Whereas both insomnia and altered interoception are core symptoms in affective disorders, their neural mechanisms remain insufficiently understood and have not previously been linked. Insomnia Disorder (ID) is characterized by sensory hypersensitivity during wakefulness and sleep. Previous studies on sensory processing in ID addr...

Study objectives: Previous laboratory studies in narcolepsy patients showed altered core body and skin temperatures, which are hypothesised to be related to a disturbed sleep wake regulation. In this ambulatory study we assessed temperature profiles in normal daily life, and whether sleep attacks are heralded by changes in skin temperature. Furthe...

Cross-sectional studies show that activity fluctuations in healthy young adults possess robust temporal correlations that become altered with aging, and in dementia and depression. This study was designed to test whether or not within-subject changes of activity correlations (i) track the clinical progression of dementia, (ii) reflect the alteratio...

Growing evidence suggests that sleep is important for procedural learning, but few studies have investigated the effect of sleep on the temporal aspects of motor skill learning. We assessed the effect of a 90-min day-time nap on learning a motor timing task, using 2 adaptations of a serial interception sequence learning (SISL) task. Forty-two right...

Difficulties initiating sleep are common in several disorders, including insomnia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. These disorders are prevalent, bearing significant societal and financial costs which require the consideration of new treatment strategies and a better understanding of the physiological and cognitive processes surroundin...

Study objectives: Individual differences in sleep timing have been widely recognized and are of particular relevance in adolescents and young adults who often show mild to severely delayed sleep. The biological mechanisms underlying the between-subject variance remain to be determined. Recent human genetics studies showed an association between sl...

Background: Insomnia is a highly prevalent disorder causing clinically significant distress and impairment. Furthermore, insomnia is associated with high societal and individual costs. Although cognitive behavioural treatment for insomnia (CBT-I) is the preferred treatment, it is not used often. Offering CBT-I in an online format may increase acce...

This data set contains electroencephalography (EEG) data as well as simultaneous EEG with functional magnetic resonance imaging (EEG/fMRI) data. During EEG/fMRI, the EEG cap was outfitted with a hardware-based add-on consisting of carbon-wire loops (CWL). These yielded six extra׳CWL׳ signals related to Faraday induction of these loops in the main m...

Study objectives: Although daytime complaints are a defining characteristic of insomnia, most EEG studies evaluated sleep only. We used high-density electroencephalography to investigate wake resting state oscillations characteristic of insomnia disorder (ID) at a fine-grained spatiospectral resolution. Methods: A case-control assessment during...

Significance Decades of research into the cause of chronic insomnia have identified hyperarousal as the key factor, but mechanisms underlying hyperarousal have remained elusive. The present findings suggest that hyperarousal can result from an inadequate resolution of emotional distress, which, in turn, is likely due to restless rapid-eye-movement...

The importance of sufficient sleep for cognitive performance has been increasingly recognized. Individual differences in susceptibility to effects of sleep restriction have hardly been investigated in children. We investigated whether individual differences in temperament moderate the association of sleep duration with sustained attention, inhibiti...

Individuals differ in thermosensitivity, thermoregulation, and zones of thermoneutrality and thermal comfort. Whereas temperature sensing and -effectuating processes occur in part unconsciously and autonomic, awareness of temperature and thermal preferences can affect thermoregulatory behavior as well. Quantification of trait-like individual differ...

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) is widely used to investigate the functional architecture of the healthy human brain and how it is affected by learning, lifelong development, brain disorders or pharmacological intervention. Non-sensory experiences are prevalent during rest and must arise from ongoing brain activity, ye...

Simultaneous EEG-fMRI combines two powerful neuroimaging techniques, but the EEG signal suffers from severe artefacts in the MRI environment that are difficult to remove. These are the MR scanning artefact and the blood-pulsation artefact - strategies to remove them is a topic of ongoing research. Additionally large, unsystematic artefacts are prod...

Unlabelled: Although the functions of sleep remain to be fully elucidated, it is clear that there are far-reaching effects of its disruption, whether by curtailment for a single night, by a few hours each night over a long period, or by disruption in sleep continuity. Epidemiological and experimental studies of these different forms of sleep disru...

In recent years, evidence has emerged for a bidirectional relationship between sleep and neurological and psychiatric disorders. First, sleep-wake disorders (SWDs) are very common and may be the first/main manifestation of underlying neurological and psychiatric disorders. Secondly, SWDs may represent an independent risk factor for neuropsychiatric...

Cerebral small vessel disease is common in elderly persons. Patients with dementia or stroke frequently have cerebral small vessel disease and often experience disturbances in the sleep-wake rhythm. It is unknown whether cerebral small vessel disease is related to disturbances in sleep and 24-h activity rhythms. This study was conducted in the Rott...

Background: Major depression and type 2 diabetes often co-occur. Novel treatment strategies for depression in type 2 diabetes patients are warranted, as depression in type 2 diabetes patients is associated with poor prognosis and treatment results. Major depression and concurrent sleep disorders have been related to disturbances of the biological...

Background: DSM-V criteria for insomnia disorder are met by 6 to 10 % of the adult population. Insomnia has severe consequences for health and society. One of the most common treatments provided by primary caregivers is pharmacological treatment, which is far from optimal and has not been recommended since a 2005 consensus report of the National In...

Patients suffering from narcolepsy type 1 show altered skin temperatures, resembling the profile that is related to sleep onset in healthy controls. The aim of the present study is to investigate the effects of sodium oxybate, a widely used drug to treat narcolepsy, on the 24-h profiles of temperature and sleep-wakefulness in patients with narcolep...

Cognitive functioning changes with age, sleep, and the circadian rhythm. We investigated whether these factors are independently associated with different cognitive domains assessed in middle-aged and elderly persons. In 1723 middle-aged and elderly persons (age 62 ± 9.4 years, mean ± standard deviation, SD) of the Rotterdam Study, we collected act...

Disturbed circadian rhythms have been associated with depression and anxiety, but it is unclear if disturbances in the 24-hr activity rhythm and sleep are independently and specifically related to these disorders. In 1,714 middle-aged and elderly participants of the Rotterdam Study, we collected actigraphy recordings of at least 96 hr (138 ± 14 hr,...

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis plays an important role in sleep. Nevertheless, the association of sleep and its 24-h organization with negative feedback control of the HPA axis has received limited attention in population-based studies. We explored this association in 493 middle-aged persons of the Rotterdam Study, a large population...

For years, the subject of sleep failed to generate much interest from either the field of medicine or that of psychology – a curious fact, as a 60-year-old has spent some 20 years out of those 60 sleeping. In fact, up until the age of approximately 3 years, a child spends more time asleep than awake. It would be an extraordinary evolutionary oversi...

Background: Sleep disturbance is an important medical problem in patients with end-stage renal disease. It might be related to the disruption of the body's circadian clock since nocturnal levels of its key biomarker melatonin are markedly reduced. We aimed at investigating whether a change in renal function due to kidney transplantation or donatio...

Circadian rhythms and sleep patterns change as people age. Little is known about the associations between circadian rhythms and mortality rates. We investigated whether 24-hour activity rhythms and sleep characteristics independently predicted mortality. Actigraphy was used to determine the stability and fragmentation of the 24-hour activity rhythm...

Background and Aim: The role of sleep in the enhancement of motor skills has been studied extensively in adults. We aimed to determine involvement of sleep and characteristics of spindles and slow waves in a motor skill in children. Hypothesis: We hypothesized sleep-dependence of skill enhancement and an association of interindividual differences i...