{"id":3435,"date":"2015-01-16T20:21:36","date_gmt":"2015-01-17T01:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2016\/03\/22\/an-overnighter-in-the-lab\/"},"modified":"2024-07-23T15:06:16","modified_gmt":"2024-07-23T19:06:16","slug":"an-overnighter-in-the-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/an-overnighter-in-the-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"An overnighter in the lab"},"content":{"rendered":"

Margaret McCurry \u201918 donned a comfy pair of pajamas and settled in for the night. Other than her 13 hair \u201caccessories,\u201d she looked like a typical college freshman getting ready for bed.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 11 p.m. and McCurry is feeling a little sleepy. \u201cDo you think you might need another pillow?\u201d she\u2019s asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be nice,\u201d McCurry responded.<\/p>\n

Her stylishly-decorated room could have come out of an Ikea catalog. But in this case, McCurry\u2019s room and the matching room next door in Johns Hall are the hub of a new and ever-growing undergraduate research program at Furman University.<\/p>\n

Psychology<\/a> professor Erin Wamsley, Ph.D., is the driving force behind the new Sleep and Cognition Laboratory, which opened last May. Wamsley came to Furman last year from the faculty of the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, impressed by Furman as a liberal arts institution that is serious about undergraduate research.<\/p>\n

\"SleepStudy_001\"

Sleep and Cognition Lab coordinator Yvette Graveline connects electrodes to Ashton Nicewonger \u201917<\/p><\/div>\n

Furman students\u2019 work at the sleep laboratory started with Wamsley\u2019s first May Experience<\/a> course, Electroencephalography (EEG) and Sleep Research\u00a0Methods boot camp, three weeks of learning how to record EEGs, design a sleep study, and analyze data.<\/p>\n

Six students, including four neuroscience majors and two Furman graduates, continued sleep research over the summer.<\/p>\n

By this fall, more than 100 undergraduate students, mostly from Furman, had participated in sleep studies headed up by Wamsley and her team of\u00a0researchers.<\/p>\n

Since a third of a person\u2019s life is spent sleeping, Wamsley is hoping to find questions to a host of questions about sleep and memory, including how memories are transformed during sleep, how emotion influences memory processing during sleep, and why and how the sleeping brain generates dreams.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s hoping to add more to the big picture of how human memory works, both long-term and short-term. \u201cWhen you learn something, the life of a memory is not over,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Wamsley also hopes her research will assist in treating psychiatric disorders, since sleep is often disrupted in those diagnosed with depression, schizophrenia, or post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n

One study, a collaboration with Robert Stickgold, a Harvard Medical School professor and the director of the school\u2019s Center for Sleep and Cognition, looks at the effect of rest and sleep on human memory.<\/p>\n

Evidence has shown that animals have replayed memories in their brains when they fall asleep, Wamsley said. The goal of the research project, funded through a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, is to establish patterns of brain activity in humans that show this \u201creactivation\u201d of memory.<\/p>\n

Quiet rest, also called resting wakefulness, and its effect on memory was the focus of a second study, which included 26 participants. They each listened to a short story, immediately recalled everything they could remember about the story, and then spent the next 15 minutes either resting with their eyes closed or playing the computer game Snood.<\/p>\n

Results of the study showed quiet rest led to greater improvement in memory, compared to staying in an active state with a computer game. \u201cThis study supports the hypothesis that even a short period of rest can support memory under optimal conditions,\u201d according to results of the EEG study, which Furman students presented at a neuroscience research event in Washington, D.C., this fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is becoming increasingly clear that the so-called \u2018resting\u2019 brain is actually hard at work processing recent experience, integrating new memories into existing semantic networks and preparing us for the future,\u201d Wamsley said.<\/p>\n

Dozens of Furman students are participating in a third study that looks at how recent learning experiences are processed during sleep and incorporated into dreams.<\/p>\n

For students volunteering to participate in the two-part study, their evening starts as 13 electrodes are applied using multi-colored wires: six on their head, one by each eye, two on the chin, one behind each ear, and one on the forehead.\"SleepStudy_021\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Students then participate in cognitive tasks, including typing for a motor sequencing task, and then by playing a video game that asks them to navigate their way through a three-dimensional maze. The sleep lab \u201cbedroom\u201d is set up with typical bedroom furniture and decorations to make students feel as relaxed and comfortable as possible, Wamsley said.<\/p>\n

Throughout the night, sleep lab coordinator Yvette Graveline monitors students\u2019 brainwaves using polysomnography and may wake students up as many as 12 times to ask them to provide reports of what they are dreaming.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the fun part. We\u2019re going to let you fall asleep,\u201d Graveline tells McCurry. \u201cYou\u2019ll hear, Margaret, please report now. Describe as many details as possible of what you were thinking right before I wake you up\u2014sounds, how you felt, people you saw, what things looked like.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCurry was excited to participate in the study, especially after studying about causes of stress in her Wellness Concepts class at Furman. \u201cI\u2019ve always had strange dreams regularly,\u201d she said. \u201cI hope I can gain some insight into what they mean or why they happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The following morning, volunteers have their memory tested again.<\/p>\n

Sleep studies have proven popular with both student volunteers and research assistants alike. Students receive $70 for participating in an overnight sleep study and $10 for assisting with the daytime study. There is currently a waiting list for volunteers, Wamsley said.<\/p>\n

After spending the summer working at the EEG lab at the University of California, San Diego, neuroscience major Matt Whitmire \u201915 of Fort Mill said he is thrilled to have a hands-on opportunity to explore his career interests in a very real way. He is working between 10 and 14 hours each week as a research assistant in the Sleep and Cognition Lab this year.<\/p>\n

The skills learned in the Sleep and Cognition Lab\u2014practicing analytical skills and solving problems in a team\u2014are \u201cessential preparation\u201d for graduate school and medical school, Wamsley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a whole different side of the field,\u201d said Whitmire, who plans to attend graduate school after Furman. \u201cFurman has given me so many opportunities to go different places and do good work. It\u2019s really going to help me with the career I\u2019d like to pursue.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Margaret McCurry \u201918 donned a comfy pair of pajamas and settled in for the night. Other than her 13 hair \u201caccessories,\u201d she looked like a typical college freshman getting ready […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":14261,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,26,34,54,35,48,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-administrative","category-admission","category-may-experience","category-parent-news","category-psychology","category-undergraduate-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33196,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3435\/revisions\/33196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}