Jessica C Levenson

University of Pittsburgh | Pitt · Department of Psychiatry

Background Disturbed sleep during early childhood predicts social–emotional problems. However, it is not known how various early childhood sleep phenotypes are associated with the development of childhood psychopathology, nor whether these relationships vary as a function of parental psychopathology. We identified sleep phenotypes among preschool y...

This White Paper addresses the current gaps in knowledge, as well as opportunities for future studies in pediatric sleep. The Sleep Research Society's Pipeline Development Committee assembled a panel of experts tasked to provide information to those interested in learning more about the field of pediatric sleep, including trainees. We cover the sco...

Background Offspring of parents with bipolar disorder (BD‐I/II) are at increased risk to develop the disorder. Previous work indicates that bipolar spectrum disorder (BPSD) is often preceded by mood/anxiety symptoms. In school‐age offspring of parents with BD, we previously built a risk calculator to predict BPSD onset, which generates person‐level...

Background Childhood abuse negatively impacts the course of Bipolar Disorder (BD). Yet, no study has examined risk factors associated with prospectively evaluated physical/sexual abuse, specifically, those preceding first abuse among BD youth. We investigate past/intake/follow-up factors preceding first physical/sexual abuse among BD youth. Method...

OBJECTIVE To compare the prevalence of psychopathology, particularly bipolar disorder (BD), between preschool offspring of parents with BD and community controls. METHOD 116 offspring of BD-I/II parents and 98 controls (53 parents with non-BD psychopathology and 45 healthy parents) were recruited at ages 2-5 years and followed on average 9.6 years...

Background Pediatric bipolar disorders are often characterized by disruptions in cognitive functioning, and exposure to child maltreatment (e.g., physical and sexual abuse) is associated with a significantly poorer course of illness. Although clinical and developmental research has shown maltreatment to be robustly associated with poorer cognitive...

Objective: Sleep disturbance may be involved in symptom progression across multiple domains of psychopathology and could represent a target for treatment development in youth. Our objective was to identify sleep patterns that longitudinally change in conjunction with psychiatric symptom severity in at-risk youth. Method: The study included 484 P...

Introduction: Working For Kids: Building Skills™ (WFK), an education program based on the principles of developmental neuroscience, is designed to teach the general public — particularly those living in stressed communities — about healthy childhood brain development. Methods: In this feasibility study, 23 families were recruited from four Allegh...

Working For Kids: Building Skills™ (WFK), an education program based on the principles of developmental neuroscience, is designed to teach the general public — particularly those living in stressed communities — about healthy childhood brain development in a fun and interactive way. This study was conducted as a feasibility study to determine wheth...

Objective: To conduct a pilot randomized trial of Interpersonal and Social Rhythm Therapy plus Data-Informed Referral (IPSRT + DIR) versus DIR-alone for adolescents at-risk for bipolar disorder (BP). Method: Eligible participants included youth (12-18) with a BP parent; youth with BP were excluded. Participants (n = 42) were randomized to receiv...

Study Objectives Social media (SM) use has been positively associated with disturbed sleep among young adults. However, previous studies have not elucidated the specific importance of SM use immediately before bed. We aimed to determine the independent association of SM use during the 30 minutes before bed and disturbed sleep while controlling for...

Background Insomnia is common in primary care medical practices. Although behavioral treatments for insomnia are safe, efficacious, and recommended in practice guidelines, they are not widely-available, and their effects on comorbid medical conditions remain uncertain. We are conducting a pragmatic clinical trial to test the efficacy of two cogniti...

Background: Sleep disturbances are a prominent feature of bipolar disorder (BP). However, it remains unclear how sleep phenotypes may evolve among at-risk youth, and their relevance to BP onset. Methods: Pittsburgh Bipolar Offspring Study (BIOS) offspring (ages 10-18) and their parents completed assessments approximately every two years pertaini...

A wealth of scientific knowledge is being generated in sleep and circadian science. In order for us to realize the return on investment for such scientific knowledge and to improve the health of the nation, we need to disseminate and implement research findings into practice. An implementation gap - termed a "quality chasm" by the Institutes of Med...

Objectives: We conducted a pilot study of a sleep health promotion program for college students. The aims of the study were to 1) determine the feasibility of the program, and 2) explore changes in sleep knowledge and sleep diary parameters. Design: Open trial of a sleep health promotion program for college students. Setting: A small liberal a...

Introduction: Many factors contribute to sleep disturbance among young adults. Social media (SM) use is increasing rapidly, and little is known regarding its association with sleep disturbance. Methods: In 2014 we assessed a nationally-representative sample of 1788U.S. young adults ages 19-32. SM volume and frequency were assessed by self-report...

Objectives: Disruptions in sleep and dysregulation in circadian functioning may represent core abnormalities in the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder (BP). However, it is not clear whether these dysfunctions are state or trait markers of BP. This report compared sleep and circadian phenotypes among three groups: offspring of parents with BP diag...

Objectives: As outlined in the social zeitgeber hypothesis, social rhythm disrupting (SRD) life events begin a cascade of social and biological rhythm disruption that may lead to the onset of affective episodes in those vulnerable to bipolar disorder. Thus, the study of SRD events is particularly important in individuals with this chronic conditio...

Insomnia disorder is characterized by chronic dissatisfaction with sleep quantity or quality that is associated with difficulty falling asleep, frequent nighttime awakenings with difficulty returning to sleep, and/or awakening earlier in the morning than desired. Although progress has been made in our understanding of the nature, etiology, and path...

Depression has been identified as the most common condition comorbid to insomnia, with findings pointing to the possibility that these disorders may be causally related to each other or may share common mechanisms. Some have suggested that comorbid insomnia and depression may have a different clinical course than either condition alone, and may thu...

Objectives We conducted a randomized, controlled trial comparing the efficacy of an Integrated Risk Reduction Intervention (IRRI) to a control condition with the objective of improving mood stability and psychosocial functioning by reducing cardiometabolic risk factors in overweight/obese patients with bipolar I disorder.MethodsA total of 122 patie...

We employed standard literature search techniques and surveyed participants on the International Society for Interpersonal Psychotherapy listserve (isiptlist@googlegroups.com) to catalogue the multiple and highly creative ways in which Klerman's and Weissman's original concept of interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) has been modified to meet the needs...

Bipolar disorder contributes substantially to the global burden of disease. Both sleep disturbance and life events predict symptoms of mania, although the underlying mechanisms associated with these relationships have been difficult to elucidate. In this report, we explore the relationships among life events, sleep disturbance, and mania in an effo...

Study objective: Establishing quantitative criteria to distinguish individuals with and without insomnia is important for clinical and research applications, but consensus has not yet been reached for specific values. The purpose of this study was to identify the optimal quantitative thresholds for actigraphy and sleep diary that differentiate old...

Despite the high prevalence of risk factors for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) among individuals with bipolar disorder, the presence of sleep-disordered breathing has not been systematically assessed in this population. In this study, we sought to determine the level of risk for OSA in a population of remitted individuals with a diagnosis of bipolar...

Background: Depressed patients with comorbid personality pathology may fare worse in treatment for depression than those without this additional pathology, and comorbid personality pathology may be associated with superior response in one form of treatment relative to another, though recent findings have been mixed. We aimed to evaluate the effect...

The pathways to increased cardiovascular risk in bipolar disorder include health behaviors, psychosocial stress and long-term medication exposure. However, the evidence that the association between cardiovascular risk factors and bipolar disorder remains significant after controlling for these co-factors suggests that additional important risk fact...

Although bipolar II disorder is a highly prevalent, chronic illness that is associated with burdensome psychosocial impairment, relatively little is known about the best ways to treat the disorder. Moreover, psychosocial interventions for the management of bipolar II disorder have been largely unexplored, leaving psychologists with few evidence-bas...

Sleep is commonly believed to be integral to emotion and emotion regulation. The scientific study of the sleep-emotion relationship is critical to our understanding of the functions of sleep, including the consequences of insufficient or otherwise disrupted sleep to health and quality of life. In this chapter we review four relevant research areas:...

One aim of personalized medicine is to determine which treatment is to be preferred for an individual patient, given all patient information available. Particularly in mental health, however, there is a lack of a single objective, reliable measure of outcome that is sensitive to crucial individual differences among patients. We examined the feasibi...

Although interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) is an efficacious treatment for acute depression, the relative efficacy of treatment in each of the four IPT problem areas (grief, role transitions, role disputes, interpersonal deficits) has received little attention. We evaluated the specificity of IPT by comparing treatment success among patients whose...

Though conditioned fear has long been acknowledged as an important etiologic mechanism in social anxiety disorder, past psychophysiological experiments have found no differences in general conditionability among social anxiety patients using generally aversive but socially nonspecific unconditioned stimuli (e.g., unpleasant odors and painful pressu...

Individuals with panic disorder perceive panic attacks as unpredictable. Because predictability is fundamental to Pavlovian conditioning, failure to predict panic attacks could be due to a basic deficit in conditioning. The present study examined trace eyeblink conditioning in order to test the hypothesis that individuals with panic disorder are im...

Serotonin reuptake inhibitors may increase symptoms of anxiety immediately following treatment initiation. The present study examined whether acute citalopram increased fear-potentiated startle to predictable and/or unpredictable shocks in healthy subjects. Eighteen healthy subjects each received two treatments, placebo and 20 mg citalopram in a cr...

Among other factors, bipolar disorder is characterized by disturbances in sleep and biological rhythms that typically cycle over a 24-h, or circadian period. Indeed, almost all of the functions that constitute symptoms of depression and mania (changes in mood, energy, sleep, interest, appetite, capacity for concentration, etc.) show relatively regu...