Descrizione del progetto
Una comprensione più profonda dell’alterazione del cronotipo
Ogni persona ha un cronotipo unico, un modello individuale di sonno. È il ritmo circadiano naturale che regola i livelli di sonno e attività. Sfortunatamente, il disallineamento circadiano è diventato un fenomeno comune, principalmente a causa di fattori ambientali che possono alterare in modo significativo i tempi e l’espressione del sonno e della veglia. Il progetto CHRONO, finanziato dall’UE, esaminerà le cause e le conseguenze dell’interruzione del cronotipo provocata dall’uso diffuso di dispositivi elettronici, luce artificiale e pressioni legate al lavoro di un’economia che non dorme mai. Cercherà di spiegare il ruolo della biologia, della società e dell’ambiente naturale e la loro interazione sulla previsione e la comprensione della resilienza all’interruzione del cronotipo. CHRONO svilupperà un modello teorico interdisciplinare multifattoriale. Inoltre raccoglierà un set di dati sociogenomici con nuove misure.
Obiettivo
The widespread use of electronic devices, artificial light and rise of the 24-hour economy means that more individuals experience disruption of their chronotype, which is the natural circadian rhythm that regulates sleep and activity levels. The natural and medical sciences focus on the natural environment (e.g. light exposure), genetics, biology and health consequences, whereas the social sciences have largely explored the socio-environment (e.g. working regulations) and psychological and familial consequences of nonstandard work schedules. For the first time CHRONO bridges these disparate disciplines to ask: What is the role of biology, the natural and socio-environment and their interaction on predicting and understanding resilience to chronotype disruption and how does this in turn impact an individual’s health (sleep, cancer, obesity, digestive problems) and family (partnership, children) outcomes? I propose to: (1) develop a multifactor interdisciplinary theoretical model; (2) disrupt data collection by crowdsourcing a sociogenomic dataset with novel measures; (3) discover and validate with informed machine learning innovative measures of chronotype (molecular genetic, accelerometer, microbiome, patient-record, self-reported) and the natural and socio-environment; (4) ask fundamentally new substantive questions to determine how chronotype disruption influences health and family outcomes and, via Biology x Environment interaction (BxE), whether this is moderated by the natural or socio-environment; and, (5) develop new statistical models and methods to cope with contentious issues, answer longitudinal questions and engage in novel quasi-experiments (e.g. policy and life course changes) to transcend description to identify endogenous factors and causal mechanisms. Interdisciplinary in the truest sense, CHRONO will overturn long-held substantive findings of the causes and consequences of chronotype disruption.
Campo scientifico
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesgenetics
- natural sciencesmathematicsapplied mathematicsstatistics and probability
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencemachine learning
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiology
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesnutritionobesity
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantIstituzione ospitante
OX1 2JD Oxford
Regno Unito