Evaluation of SmartSleep Technology for Improving the Efficiency and Restorative Quality of Sleep in Healthy Adults in Order to Mitigate Cognitive Performance Deficits Due to Sleep Restriction and Emergency Awakenings

Sleep in spaceflight is often reduced in duration and of reduced quality, which Earth-based studies show can reduce waking cognitive performance. Sleep medications have been used in spaceflight to promote better sleep quality and longer sleep duration sleep, but these have also been shown to markedly compromise the cognitive performance capability of astronauts when an emergency awakening requires them to function effectively. Thus, there is a need for a technology that can improve sleep quality in space and biologically maximize the performance benefits of limited sleep duration, without unduly affecting the ability of astronauts to awaken abruptly due to an inflight emergency. Studies have found that unconscious sound enhancement of electroencephalogram (EEG) slow waves during sleep can increase subsequent cognitive performance. This approach to improving sleep quality and the cognitive benefits of sleep is now available as "SmartSleep," a new technology that enhances slow waves using inaudible acoustic stimulation during sleep. SmartSleep consists of a headband worn during sleep and a sleep app. This project proposes to evaluate this technology in a controlled, double-blind, laboratory study of non-invasive brain stimulation in healthy normal astronaut-like adults, to evaluate whether slow wave sleep enhancement via the SmartSleep stimulus algorithms could benefit cognitive performance during sleep restriction, and/or decrease the severity and duration of sleep inertia after abrupt awakening from sleep.

The project has unique and innovative impacts for both spaceflight and Earth (e.g., the public) through the evaluation of the SmartSleep headband technology, which is a new, non-invasive, brain stimulation technology to promote sleep depth and quality. The benefit of the research for both, space and Earth, is the potential to reduce the neurocognitive decrements associated with sleep restriction through acoustic stimulation of EEG slow waves during sleep. For space, the SmartSleep headband technology has the potential to benefit astronauts by addressing the need to improve sleep efficiency and quality on spaceflight missions. For Earth, given that adults often sleep less than the suggested 7 hours per night, the SmartSleep headband technology may be a viable at-home device capable of mitigating the neurocognitive decrements associated with short sleep.

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