Cognition, COVID and Continuation
48m | Mar 29, 2021In this episode
- Why Season Two shifts from learning about sleep to testing sleep interventions
- The role cognition was intended to play in judging whether a sleep experiment worked
- Why adolescent biology clashes with very early school start times
- Where the 16.5% teen-car-crash figure actually came from
- What later meta-analyses found about delayed school starts and sleep duration
- How sleep labs adapted to COVID with PAP precautions, ventilation, screening and telemedicine
- Pandemic stress, insomnia and disrupted schedules
- Early questions about COVID’s effects on the brain and what later long-COVID research found
- The association between obstructive sleep apnea and worse COVID outcomes
- Why a possible PAP benefit should not be confused with proof of protection
- Sleep duration and vaccine antibody response
- Adrian Owen’s large study of habitual sleep duration and cognition
- Why the published “brain aging” comparison was eight years, not ten
- Reasoning and verbal performance versus short-term memory
- Why self-reported, observational sleep data cannot establish causation
- How repeated cognitive testing can reduce — but not eliminate — practice effects
- Baselines, changing one variable at a time and washout periods
- Why an N-of-1 experiment can be useful personally without becoming clinical evidence
- How Cambridge Brain Sciences became Creyos
About Dr. Seema Khosla
Seema Khosla, MD, FCCP, FAASM, is board certified in internal medicine, pulmonary disease, critical care medicine and sleep medicine. She is Medical Director of the North Dakota Center for Sleep in Fargo and the longtime host of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine podcast Talking Sleep, where she discusses research, technology and clinical practice across sleep medicine.
About Dr. Adrian Owen
Adrian Owen, PhD, OBE, is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging in the Departments of Psychology and Physiology & Pharmacology at Western University in London, Ontario. He leads the Owen Lab, where his research combines neuroimaging with cognitive studies in healthy participants and people with brain injuries and neurological disease. He is also Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Creyos, formerly Cambridge Brain Sciences.
MENTIONED
School Start Times, Sleep, Behavioral, Health, and Academic Outcomes
The 2016 review of 38 reports discussed on the original episode page.
Adolescent Sleep, School Start Times, and Teen Motor Vehicle Crashes
The Kentucky study behind the 16.5% reduction in teen crash rates quoted in the episode.
School Start Times, Sleep, and Youth Outcomes
A 2022 meta-analysis of 28 studies and more than 1.7 million participants.
2026 Delayed School Start-Time Meta-analysis
A newer analysis finding an average increase of about 69 minutes of sleep, with high heterogeneity between studies.
Talking Sleep
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine podcast hosted by Seema Khosla.
Obstructive Sleep Apnea and COVID-19 Outcomes
A 2021 systematic review and meta-analysis of 21 studies and 54,276 COVID patients.
OSA, PAP Therapy and COVID-19 Outcomes
A 2026 retrospective cohort study examining whether PAP adherence modified COVID outcomes.
Sleep Duration and Vaccine Response
A 2023 meta-analysis linking objectively measured short sleep around vaccination with reduced antibody response.
Long-Term Neurological and Cognitive Effects of COVID-19
A large systematic review and meta-analysis examining persistent cognitive, memory, concentration and sleep symptoms after COVID.
Dissociable Effects of Self-Reported Daily Sleep Duration on High-Level Cognitive Abilities
The 2018 sleep-and-cognition study by Conor Wild, Adrian Owen and colleagues discussed throughout the interview.
Creyos — formerly Cambridge Brain Sciences
The cognitive-assessment platform discussed in the episode was renamed Creyos in November 2022.
Adrian Owen at Western University
Owen’s current Western University faculty profile and research roles.
