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Nobel Conference Fourth Lecture 

Clock, Hourglass and Teen Sleep

Mary Carskadon
Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Brown University

One of my favorite quotes comes from a book by Mary Gordon where she describes adolescent sleep as “long, dark and sullen.” With several decades of research, I and my team have been able to identify biological processes that produce this phenomenon that Gordon paints so vividly. Adolescents don’t need less sleep than in their pre-teen years, but when they sleep transitions to a later time. We know that sleep is regulated by two intrinsic factors: circadian rhythms (clock) and a homeostatic drive (hourglass), and the way these work changes during adolescence. The circadian clock is set later in teens, and the sleep drive across waking builds more slowly for adolescents. These findings indicate that changed biological processes allow teens to stay awake later and longer, even though they still need the same amount of sleep as before. Thus, the system craves longer and later sleep that is very deep if occurring on the heels of sleep loss. I will describe the research behind these conclusions and add to them the social and psychological factors facing adolescents that contribute to a “perfect storm.”