0363 Sound vs. Sight: A Modality-Specific Preliminary Investigation of Sleep-Related Attentional Bias in Older Adults

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Increased attention to sleep-related stimuli (i.e., “sleep-related attentional bias”) may contribute to the persistence of insomnia symptoms. Despite high prevalence of insomnia disorder in older adults, studies investigating this phenomenon in this population are lacking. Additionally, it is unclear whether this bias occurs only for visual stimuli or more broadly, such as for auditory stimuli. This study examined whether auditory and visual sleep-related attentional bias differed as a function of insomnia disorder in older adults. Methods Sixty-one older adults (Mage=68.2±5.9; 41 women/) with (n=22) and without (n=39) insomnia (met DSM-5 criteria plus reported 6+nights/14 of >30 mins sleep onset latency or wake after sleep onset on daily diaries) completed modified Posner Cueing and Dot Probe tasks. Task cues included sleep-related auditory (e.g., alarm clocks, snoring), visual (e.g., clocks set to bedtimes, person awake in bed) and non-sleep (auditory: pure tones; visual: neutral images from the International Affective Picture system) stimuli. For Posner, valid [non-cued reaction time (RT) minus validly-cued RT] and invalid (non-cued RT minus invalidly-cued RT) sleep and non-sleep related visual and auditory cueing effects were calculated. For Dot Probe, valid (non-sleep/neutral cued RT minus sleep-related validly-cued RT) and invalid (non-sleep/neutral cued RT minus sleep-related invalidly-cued RT) visual cueing effects were computed. Independent t-tests examined whether auditory/visual mean cueing effects for sleep and non-sleep stimuli differed by insomnia status. Results Posner valid auditory sleep-related cueing effects were larger (p=.04) for those with insomnia (104.6±47.6ms) vs. without (80.7±57.3ms). Valid auditory non-sleep related cueing effects were also larger (p=.001) for insomnia (118.9±48.8ms) vs. without (67.9±77.2ms). For Dot Probe, there was a trending difference (p=.07) between visual sleep-related valid cueing effects for insomnia (14.7ms±6.7ms) vs. without (-1.8ms±7.1ms). Conclusion Preliminary findings suggest older adults with insomnia experience larger visual sleep-related attentional bias than those without insomnia. Further, greater auditory attentional bias in insomnia may reflect general auditory cortex hypervigilance. Aging adults with insomnia may benefit from stimulus desensitization towards insomnia triggers across sensory modalities to potentially facilitate sleep. Support (if any) This research project was made possible by an award (PI:Curtis) from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Foundation, a foundation of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.