Bristol Neuroscience awarded £6.5 million to nurture mental health by keeping young brains on track

Sly Saint

Sly Saint

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Press release issued: 12 May 2022

We need to look after young brains: threats including early life adversity, sleep disruption, drug addiction and genetic mutations can all challenge brain development and lifelong mental health. Thanks to funding of over £6.5 million for new brain research, neuroscientists at the University of Bristol hope to alleviate these threats and their burden on patients, carers, clinicians and society.
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Esther Crawley, Professor of Child Health in Bristol Medical School, will lead a team of epidemiologists, psychologists, sociologists and engineers on a pioneering project, called ‘Sleep Tracking and Treatment for Adolescent Mental health Problems (STTAMP)’.

The team will use smartphone apps to detect and treat insomnia before it takes root, setting young people back on track and avoiding long-term mental health problems. The £1 million programme will be funded predominantly by The Prudence Trust, with additional University of Bristol funding for a clinical PhD.
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http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2022/may/bristol-neuroscience-awarded-65-million.html
 
It's nice to have friends:

"Esther Crawley, Professor of Child Health in Bristol Medical School, will lead a team of epidemiologists, psychologists, sociologists and engineers on a pioneering project, called ‘Sleep Tracking and Treatment for Adolescent Mental health Problems (STTAMP)’.

The team will use smartphone apps to detect and treat insomnia before it takes root, setting young people back on track and avoiding long-term mental health problems. The £1 million programme will be funded predominantly by The Prudence Trust, with additional University of Bristol funding for a clinical PhD."


The Prudence Trust

"Very few people now doubt the importance of mental health and illness to individuals, families and society. What makes the Prudence Trust different is that they want to help build the evidence to decide what to do and, what not to do.

Prof Sir Simon Wessely
Member of the Prudence Trust Mental Health Advisory Panel"
 
Maybe they need this in Bristol since, if I remember rightly, students at Bristol are the most miserable in the country.

Didn't we used to have this treatment for sleep irregularity sixty years ago?
'Time you were in bed and stopped playing that guitar.'

I was taught that sleep problems were an effect of mental illness though, not a cause.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
Maybe they need this in Bristol since, if I remember rightly, students at Bristol are the most miserable in the country.

Didn't we used to have this treatment for sleep irregularity sixty years ago?
'Time you were in bed and stopped playing that guitar.'

I was taught that sleep problems were an effect of mental illness though, not a cause.
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Unfortunately Prof Crawley, judging on the basis of her press interviews on ME, is strongly committed to the belief that behavioural changes will positively impact on brain function:

"A teenager might say, 'You are just trying to change my sleep', but do you know how much biology you actually change?

"Children who come to my clinic have low cortisol [stress hormone] levels in the morning, that is why they feel so terrible; by changing their sleep, we reverse that.

"The stuff we are doing is not a pill, but it might as well be”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37822068
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Jonathan Edwards said:
I was taught that sleep problems were an effect of mental illness though, not a cause.
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I've had my ME permanently worsened by sleep deprivation. I've also acquired a severe mental health (Not that I'm a mind/body dualist) condition from years of inadequate sleep.

All these behavioural solutions are nonsense though.

Here's an extract from my account of my illness:

"2007 During an appointment with a mental health nurse I was told to practice sleep hygiene. For example: wake up at the same time everyday, can you imagine my anger, I go to the NHS and say I can't sleep, I'm too tired to keep waking up at the same time every morning, and they tell me the solution was to wake up at the same time everyday. She also wrote in my medical notes that I thought I was uniquely ill which was not true. Other sleep hygiene tips included avoiding alcohol and caffeine which seemed so obvious it was an insult to my intelligence. They clearly weren't taking my illness seriously. "

What I needed was a quiet place to sleep, not sleep hygiene.
 
"Children who come to my clinic have low cortisol [stress hormone] levels in the morning, that is why they feel so terrible; by changing their sleep, we reverse that.
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Obviously that's nonsense, and so is the idea that cortisol level = stress, but here she is saying that low level cortisol means stress.

So low presence of "stress" hormone (a metabolic precursor that does many things) means stress, even though obviously a high level must also mean that. OK. I mean we are clearly past the point at which coherence is even seen as a good thing but still, this is literally arguing that up is down and also down is down, if it's what you need it to be.

It's not just the complete abandonment of scientific thinking, it's also the complete abandonment of common sense or even basic validity of statements.

The whole "sleep hygiene" nonsense cannot die soon enough. But at this point it's like everything is dumb anyway.
 
Sleep hygiene sounds like the sort of bedtime routines parents use to calm and settle children to ensure they get enough sleep. I have no problem with teaching parents about how much sleep children need, and ways to help enable this so they aren't falling asleep at school or getting stressed by lack of sleep.

I assume this project aims to use wearable sensors to detect whether a child is getting enough sleep. That is presumably just the tracking and measuring bit of the study, and maybe getting daily feedback on it is supposed to contribute to changing parents and kids behaviour. That assumes parents are able to provide safe, quiet routine bedtimes without stressors that keep kids awake like hunger, bullying, etc.
 
CRG said:
"Esther Crawley, Professor of Child Health in Bristol Medical School, will lead a team of epidemiologists, psychologists, sociologists and engineers on a pioneering project, called ‘Sleep Tracking and Treatment for Adolescent Mental health Problems (STTAMP)’.
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job ad
STTAMP Study Manager (STTAMP: Sleep Tracking and Treatment for Adolescent Mental health Problems)
You should apply if
You are very organised, highly motivated and able to work independently and part of a large team. You will have experience of running complex research studies (e.g develop protocols and SOPs) and be able to create, and implement processes. You will be a great team player, a motivational manager and be able to monitor study progress, identifying and solving problems.

Contract type: Open ended with fixed funding to 31/07/2025
For informal enquiries please contact: Esther Crawley;
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https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/CRE987/s...eatment-for-adolescent-mental-health-problems
 
Sadly there is so much about sleep that is not known..
Sleep hygiene was disastrous for my daughter. I suspect it may be similar for other chronic illnesses ( who will no doubt be susceptible to the mental illness tag as an additional diagnosis)

It will be interesting to see how set backs/ harms/ adverse events are recorded and reported
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
Maybe they need this in Bristol since, if I remember rightly, students at Bristol are the most miserable in the country.

Didn't we used to have this treatment for sleep irregularity sixty years ago?
'Time you were in bed and stopped playing that guitar.'

I was taught that sleep problems were an effect of mental illness though, not a cause.
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Well yes but if you have mental illness it is often worse when you’re not sleeping well
 
Sarah94 said:
Well yes but if you have mental illness it is often worse when you’re not sleeping well
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From varied experience, everything gets worse if you don't sleep well, illness or not.

My vocabulary gets compromised when my sleep is particularly bad. One of the first signs that I need to slow down. Together with carb cravings ..
 
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