JAMA Pediatrics: Recent Research in Adolescent Sleep

Recent research in JAMA Pediatrics from Brant Hasler, PhD (Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Clinical and Translational Science, and Psychology), and Meredith Wallace, PhD (Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Biostatistics and Statistics) advance our understanding of the association between sleep, circadian rhythm, and sleep outcomes in young people. 

Chronotherapeutic Approaches to Target Insufficient and Late Sleep in Adolescents - A Randomized Clinical Trial

Many adolescents experience insufficient sleep due in part to misalignment between their tendency towards later biological timing and early sleep-wake schedules imposed by early school start times. In addition, adolescents often attempt to catch up on sleep by sleeping later on weekends, leading to irregular sleep patterns that affect the stability of the circadian clock throughout the week. This combination of insufficient and misaligned sleep can adversely impact physical and mental health.

A recent study led by Dr. Hasler, and including Delainey Wescott, PhD (Postdoctoral Scholar in Psychiatry), Dr. Wallace, Daniel Buysse, MD (UPMC Endowed Chair in Sleep Medicine and Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Clinical and Translational Science, and Medicine), and Duncan Clark, MD, PhD (Professor of Psychiatry and Pharmaceutical Sciences), from Pitt Psychiatry, described the Sleeping Late Teens Program, an intervention that combines sleep scheduling with morning bright-light glasses and evening blue light–blocking glasses. The investigators tested whether the Sleeping Late Teens Program could successfully shift circadian timing earlier, increase weeknight sleep duration, and alter circadian misalignment in adolescents who routinely go to sleep later than 1:00 a.m. on weekends. 

The scientists confirmed that among study participants receiving the intervention, circadian timing shifted earlier, and weekday sleep lengthened. 

“Importantly, teens tend to be biological night owls, and thus you can’t just tell them to go to sleep earlier, or to wake up early for school and be ready to learn. While we wait for policy-level efforts for later school start times, these findings are proof of concept that we can use chronotherapeutic tools to help teens adapt,” said Dr. Hasler. 

Wescott DL, Quick AD,  Oryshkewych NS, Wallace ML, Beebe D, Buysse DJ, Clark DB, Mirchandaney R, Hasler BP. 
JAMA Pediatrics. Published online April 20, 2026. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2026.0976 

Sleep Health Dimensions From Wearables and Transdiagnostic Mental Health in Young Adolescents

Adolescence is a period of both increased risk for mental health problems and changes in habitual sleep health patterns. These co-occurring changes in sleep and mental health, combined with the modifiable nature of sleep, highlight sleep health as an important risk marker for detection of mental illness during adolescence. However, the complex and multidimensional nature of sleep health can hinder the field’s ability to narrow in on the most robust targets because different studies focus on different aspects of sleep.

The dimensionality of sleep health has been well characterized in adults, but behavioral sleep health dimensions have not been empirically determined in adolescents. Investigators led by Dr. Wallace, and including Rebecca Cooper, PhD (postdoctoral fellow, Boston Children’s Hospital), Duncan Clark, MD, PhD (Professor of Psychiatry and Pharmaceutical Sciences); and Adriane Soehner, PhD (Associate Professor of Psychiatry), examined data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study establish and validate a multidimensional sleep health structure in early adolescence using wearable Fitbit data, and relate these dimensions to prospective mental health.

The investigators identified six adolescent sleep health dimensions: irregularity (night-to-night variability in timing and duration), timing, social jetlag (weekday-weekend shifts in timing), duration, weekend oversleep, and continuity. Of the six dimensions, greater irregularity and shorter sleep duration emerged as important correlates of concurrent mental health symptoms, while duration was associated with prospective mental health symptoms.

“This work can serve as a foundation for more rigorous and reproducible research on pediatric sleep. Moreover, our findings that day-to-day sleep irregularity is distinct from either social jetlag or weekend oversleep, and is uniquely associated with mental health symptoms, suggests an important intervention target for future pediatric mental health research.” said Dr. Wallace. 

Cooper RE, Baker AW, Quick AD, Yu L, Gonzalez R, Clark DB, McMakin DL, Soehner AM, Jalbrzikowski M, Wallace ML. 
JAMA Pediatrics. 2026;180(5):535–545. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2026.0335