Van Someren group

General description research

The Van Someren group aims to understand the brain mechanisms underlying the finding that Insomnia Disorder is the primary factor determining the risk, severity, treatment resistance and relapse of Anxiety Disorders, Major Depressive Disorder and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. These commonly co-occurring four disorder types cover two-thirds of all psychiatric disorders. We study their interactions using MRI, fMRI, DTI, tractography, HD-EEG, GWAS, eHealth and pharmacological interventions, experience sampling, questionnaires and integrated physiological, behavioral and environmental ambulatory assessment. Citizen Science on our Netherlands Sleep Registry identified insomnia subtypes,4 distinguished by their lifetime risk of psychiatric disorders as well as by personality, reward functions, deviating brain white matter connectivity and EEG.4,5 We discovered a maladaptive kind of sleep interfering with overnight emotional distress regulation, suggesting that altered noradrenergic modulation of limbic plasticity is key to adverse causal effects of insomnia. We investigate prevention and recovery of distress and psychiatric symptoms by targeting sleep.

Psychiatric symptoms (or disorders) the group is interested in 

The Van Someren group studies symptoms and disorders in four DSM-V categories in an integrated way: Insomnia Disorder, Anxiety Disorders, Major Depressive Disorder and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Their strong background in studying disturbed sleep in psychiatric disorders is shared to support colleague scientists and clinicians working on Schizophrenia and Borderline Personality Disorder.

Technical approaches

The Van Someren group has been and is utilizing MRI, fMRI, DTI, tractography, HD-EEG, GWAS, eHealth and pharmacological interventions, experience sampling, citizen science, questionnaires and integrated physiological, behavioral and environmental ambulatory assessment. Mouse models integrating closed-loop sleep-stage specific optogenetic manipulation of the locus coeruleus with emotional behavior paradigms have just commenced to understand brain mechanisms underlying the maladaptive overnight emotional distress regulation and limbic plasticity that seems key to the role of disturbed sleep in psychiatry.

Keywords: Insomnia Disorder, Anxiety Disorders, Major Depressive Disorder, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Emotion regulation, Limbic system, Locus Coeruleus, Learning and Memory, Adaptation, Noradrenaline, MRI, fMRI, DTI, Tractography, HD-EEG, GWAS, eHealth interventions, pharmacological interventions, experience sampling, questionnaires, ambulatory assessment, Citizen Science.

List of  the matching research domains and/or disorders:
Negative Valence
Positive Valence
Cognitive Systems
Arousal and Regulatory Systems