Date of Graduation

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts in Psychology

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Psychological Science

Advisor/Mentor

Leong, Josiah

Committee Member

Beike, Denise

Second Committee Member

Beaulieu, Jeremy

Abstract

Insomnia is the second most common mental disorder that affects approximately 10% of the population. An additional one-third of the population experiences occasional symptoms of insomnia like difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep. Sleep quality is also a key indicator of overall mental and physical health; however, researchers have only begun to study the effects of the structure of the mesolimbic pathway on sleep cycle regulation and quality. Emerging research suggests that mesolimbic dopamine projections from the Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA) to the Nucleus Accumbens (NAcc) play a role in sleep-wake regulation. In this study, I analyzed data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study to characterize the VTA-NAcc white-matter tract, and further to test whether sleep quality was associated with the structural coherence of the tract. Results show that in children, poor sleep quality was associated with significantly reduced structural coherence of the VTA-NAcc tract in the first 25% of both the left and right hemispheres. My findings suggest that the VTA-NAcc tract may regulate the sleep-wake cycle, leading to reduced sleep quality and the emergence of insomnia symptoms.

Keywords

Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development; sleep; insomnia; nucleus accumbens; ventral tegmental area; fractional anisotropy

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