Project Status:

Active

Description:

Dr. Sokolovsky’s prospective, observational study leverages ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and novel wearable biosensor technology to assess the link between cannabis use (CU) and depression both in-the-moment and longitudinally. The study examines sleep and negative affect as short and long-term mechanisms linking CU and depression at the day- and person-level. EMA is used to measure behaviors and wearable biosensors to passively and unobtrusively measure sleep. A sample of young adults stratified by frequency of CU and oversampled for low socioeconomic status complete 14-day bursts of EMA at baseline, 3, 6, and 9 months. Measures include self-reported and objective sleep phenotypes, CU behaviors, negative affect, depressive symptoms, and inflammatory and endocrine biomarkers of depression. Results will have significant public health impact, inform treatment and policy, and address a critical gap in our understanding of how cannabis and depression are related. Dr. Sokolovsky and his team hypothesize that CU will be associated with improved in-the-moment negative affect (NA) and next-day depressive symptoms but that CU will predict worse depressive symptoms, NA, inflammatory or endocrine biomarkers of stress and depression longitudinally (at next burst). The team also hypothesizes that CU will have mixed effects on same-night sleep phenotypes by improving sleep onset latency while interfering with other sleep phenotypes and that CU will be associated with worse sleep phenotypes longitudinally. Further, the team predicts that sleep and NA will mediate the relationship between CU and depression outcomes both in the short-term and longitudinally.

Mentor:

Jennifer Tidey, Ph.D., Brown University 

Research Team:

Mary Ellen Fernandez, Project Manager
Nicole Haderlein, MPH, Research Assistant

Bailey Clark, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Munachimso Ugoh, MPH Candidate, Graduate Research Assistant
Lauren Diamond, Undergraduate Research Assistant