No matter who you are, sleep is a fundamental pillar of health, influencing everything from mental well-being to physical resilience. For children and adolescents in particular, good sleep plays an important role in growth and development of body and mind. 

At the University of Oregon, researchers Melynda Casement and Ariel Williamson are advancing our understanding of sleep and the role it plays in the mental health of children and adolescents through distinct yet complementary approaches. Together, their work provides a continuum of insights from the mechanisms by which sleep impacts mental health to the real-world application of sleep research to improve lives. 

Having trouble sleeping? It may not be a “you problem.”

Having trouble sleeping? It may not be a “you problem.”Williamson is an assistant professor at the Ballmer Institute for Children's Behavioral Health and in the Department of Psychology. She directs the Behavior, Emotions, Development and Sleep (BEDS) Lab, and her research focuses on improving pediatric sleep health and addressing sleep problems in partnership with families, primary care clinicians, and community organizations. By applying implementation science principles and a socio-ecological lens, her work aims to increase access to evidence-based sleep treatments that are personalized and consider factors like family dynamics, school settings, healthcare systems, and broader cultural contexts.  

A major aspect of Williamson’s work is ensuring that research findings are actionable and accessible. For instance, with colleagues at her previous institution (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) she developed a primary care sleep screener that has been integrated into more than 300,000 well-child visits each year, allowing healthcare providers to flag sleep issues and provide resources to families. This tool exemplifies her commitment to translating research into practical, scalable solutions to promote healthy sleep for all children and families. 

And while at first glance influencing the quality of a person’s sleep might seem an issue easily addressed by blackout curtains and a white noise machine, Williamson notes that social and environmental factors both within and outside of the home play a large role in the duration and quality of sleep. 

“People usually think about things that are distressing at night,” she said. “While there are individual or family interventions like positive bedtime routines, nighttime coping strategies, and earplugs (if safe) to improve sleep environments, policy-level interventions could also help improve other factors, like neighborhood light, noise, and air quality, which are all related to sleep health. Sleep is multiply determined and affects so many outcomes.”  

Technology and media use are additional factors Williamson examines, particularly their intersection with adolescent sleep. She advocates for balanced, nonjudgmental approaches, recognizing that while phones and media can worsen sleep problems, they are often used to fill a void for adolescents experiencing insomnia, a common marker of mental health struggles. Instead of blanket screentime bans, she encourages families to focus on healthy sleep routines, alternatives to screen use at bedtime, and open communication about technology and media use. 

“I don’t think technology is the source of every kid’s sleep problem,” she said. “I couch recommendations and considerations that are flexible for different families. For some families, particularly shift workers, video calls at bedtime are how parents can say goodnight to their children.” 

Ultimately, Williamson aims to scale interventions to ensure they are sustainable and equitable. Her work underscores the importance of promoting sleep health as an integral part of overall well-being. 

Sleep’s impact on the brain’s reward systems in depression and risky alcohol use

Melynda Casement, an associate professor, director of the UO’s Sleep Lab, and member of the UO’s Center for Translational Neuroscience and the Lewis Center for Neuroimaging takes a complementary approach, focusing on the biological and neural mechanisms by which sleep disturbances contribute to mental health outcomes.  

Her research, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), includes two major projects. One examines adolescent depression and anhedonia—a diminished ability to feel pleasure or reward. The other examines young adults with risky alcohol use: consuming more than four drinks a day or more than eight drinks a week for women, and more than five drinks a day or more than 15 a week for men. Both studies examine how sleep duration and timing influence brain functions related to reward processing and stress. 

One of Casement’s key areas of focus is understanding how disrupted sleep affects reward circuitry in the brain. For example, in depression, individuals often experience a “blunting” of the brain’s reward response. Similarly, in substance use disorders, the brain becomes increasingly dependent on substances like alcohol for reward, while other aspects of life lose their motivational pull. By using techniques like monetary incentive paradigms and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Casement explores how adolescents with short sleep duration and late sleep timing process rewards and how this contributes to conditions like depression and risky alcohol use. 

Her research also delves into the concept of allostatic load—the cumulative biological burden of chronic stressors including poor sleep. By examining biomarkers across metabolic, inflammatory, and cardiovascular systems, Casement investigates how early sleep behaviors might predict later health risks, from depression to sleep disorders. This work has significant implications for identifying early warning signs and preventive measures.

Both Casement and Williamson seek to raise awareness of the critical developmental windows in adolescence when sleep is particularly impactful. During puberty, adolescents naturally experience a delay in their circadian rhythm (body clock) that shifts their bed and wake times later. While societal structures like early school start times make it challenging to align with these changes, both emphasize the importance of wind-down routines, morning wake-up routines, and some weekend catch-up sleep to mitigate the effects of sleep debt.  

“Sleep problems often precede and predict mental health disorders,” Casement said, urging both families and medical providers to pay closer attention to sleep health, citing evidence that sleep disorders are under diagnosed in youth, in part because many medical professionals receive very little training as it relates to sleep. 

Working as a team enables Williamson and Casement to translate their understanding of the profound connections between sleep and mental health into meaningful change. Both researchers are part of the Pacific Northwest Sleep and Circadian Network which fosters collaboration among sleep scientists in the region. Their complementary foci create a continuum of understanding, from uncovering the biological mechanisms of sleep to implementing evidence-based interventions in real-world settings. 

Their efforts also highlight the bidirectional relationship between sleep and mental health. As Williamson noted, “Sleep is crucial for mental health, and mental health is crucial for sleep.”  

Through their research, Williamson and Casement are advancing a greater emphasis on sleep’s role and the knowledge that it must be better integrated into broader health and mental health care frameworks. By promoting awareness, equipping medical providers with tools and knowledge, and advocating for policy changes, they are helping to ensure that sleep—a cornerstone of health—receives the attention it deserves. 

— By Kelley Christensen, Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation