Supervisors and Projects

The role of sleep and circadian disruption in comorbidity of depression with cardiometabolic disease.

Supervisors

Donald Lyall, School of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow

Daniel Smith, CMVM, University of Edinburgh

Laura Lyall, Department of Mental Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow

 

Summary

This PhD project aims to investigate the role of sleep and circadian rhythm disruption in the comorbidity of depression with cardiometabolic diseases (CMD) such as hypertension and diabetes. Previous studies have shown that both sleep disturbances and depression are associated with an increased risk of CMD. However, little research has been conducted on whether sleep and circadian disruption mediate or moderate the relationship between depression and CMD, or if they independently influence the development of CMD.

The study will analyse data from the UK Biobank cohort, which includes over 500,000 individuals, and actigraphy-derived sleep measures from around 90,000 individuals.

The project has three objectives:

1) To determine if individuals with disrupted sleep and circadian rhythms in addition to depression have higher risk of CMD.

2) To identify specific sleep, circadian, and mental health measures that are most important in predicting CMD risk and which can be used together to identify high-risk individuals.

3) To explore causal relationships between sleep, circadian factors, depression, and CMD using genetic variants associated with these factors.

This project will enhance our understanding of the relationship between sleep, circadian rhythms, depression, and CMD, providing valuable insights into risk factors and potential causal pathways.