Biomarkers for Peripheral Circadian Clocks in Humans

Description

Visit 1: Participants who meet pre-screen/initial inclusion criteria will be consented at Visit 1, complete additional questionnaires and interviews to assess inclusion/exclusion criteria, and we will collect descriptive data as well as have our clinical psychologist perform a clinical interview.

Visit 2: Participants will undergo medical screening at the Clinical Translational Research Center at the University of Colorado Boulder (UCB-CTRC) to determine health status.

Visits 3 & 6: Participants will be asked to maintain a regular ~8h sleep-wake schedule for two weeks prior to Visits 5 and 8. Participants will wear a wrist activity, skin temperature, and light exposure recorder. Participants will be asked to remain in the local time zone during ambulatory recording procedures and be asked to keep their typical schedules (e.g., not stay up all night for work or social events and not reside in a new place different from their place of residence).

Visit 4 & 7: Participants will come to the laboratory on days 11 and 39, where qualified staff will apply a Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) sensor to be worn for ~3 days at home and will continue in the laboratory. For the three days leading up to the study isocaloric meals including breakfast, lunch, and dinner will be provided. Participants will be asked to consume these energy balanced research diets (no caffeine) and meal timing will be scheduled (breakfast ~30 min, lunch ~5h, and dinner ~10h after awakening,). Exercise will be proscribed for these 3-days prior to the in-lab study.

Visits 5 & 8: Participants will be randomized to condition order using an ABBA design (i.e., randomized into one of the two experimental conditions first in a crossover design: 3-days bright light exposure or 3-days of earlier timed meals). Both conditions are tested under an advanced sleep-wake schedule equivalent to traveling 5 time zones east. All participants will complete both conditions. On the second visit, participants will be tested in the other condition. Participants will live in the laboratory for 7.7 days each visit.