{"id":655020,"date":"2026-08-25T04:46:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T04:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/655020\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T04:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T04:46:16","slug":"maynooth-led-sleep-research-will-examine-links-with-mental-health-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/655020\/","title":{"rendered":"Maynooth-led sleep research will examine links with mental health \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Irish-led research is to examine why disruption to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/sleep\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/sleep\/\">sleep<\/a> is linked to conditions such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Researchers at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/maynooth-university\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/maynooth-university\/\">Maynooth University<\/a> will investigate how sleep influences <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/mental-health\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/mental-health\/\">mental health<\/a>, leading an important  international research and doctoral training initiative.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The programme, DataGenChrono, co\u2011led by Maynooth University professors Andrew Coogan and  Lorna Lopez, will bring together leading researchers from academia and industry across 12 partner organisations in Europe and Canada.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">DataGenChrono will uncover the genetic and biological pathways that connect sleep and mental illness using advancements in human genomics, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/artificial-intelligence\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/artificial-intelligence\/\">artificial intelligence<\/a> and large\u2011scale health data.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The programme aims to lay the foundations for  approaches to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">While it is already known that sleep becomes altered by mental health conditions, Coogan said \u201ca key question for us to address\u201d is how each mental health condition alters sleep.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He gave the example that sleep may be disturbed in a different way for someone with an anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He said another \u201creally important question\u201d to understand from this research is how sleep patterns change across a lifespan, moving from adolescence to an older adult.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Coogan, from the Department of Psychology and Kathleen Lonsdale Institute for Human Health Research at Maynooth University, said, \u201cOur research specialism here is in sleep and circadian rhythm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/health\/your-wellness\/2026\/08\/11\/what-is-quality-sleep-dont-ask-your-smart-watch\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">What \u2018smart\u2019 watches get wrong and right when tracking the quality of your sleepOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWe\u2019ve been working for a number of years on links between circadian rhythms and sleep and aspects of mental health and aspects of physical health.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cObviously, mental health and mental health challenges are recognised as major public health challenges, major challenges for society and for individuals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWe are particularly interested in the opportunity that understanding how sleep and sleep health can be leveraged to improve mental health. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cOne of the things we know quite a bit about is that sleep becomes poorer in mental health conditions. That poor state can be a risk factor for those conditions as well. So it\u2019s both a risk factor and a symptom,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish-led research is to examine why disruption to sleep is linked to conditions such as depression, anxiety, bipolar&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[78],"tags":[289,18,135,19,17,55206,167,543],"class_list":["post-655020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-maynooth-university","tag-mental-health","tag-sleep"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117154335072854669","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}