Insomnia phenotypes – treatment and health consequences

Insomnia is a disorder characterized by difficulties initiating or maintaining sleep. The disorder has a strong impact on quality of life and is an important risk factor for depression and cardiovascular diseases. It has been often argued that insomnia is a very heterogeneous disorder and that this hinders a better treatment and understanding of the condition. The Freiburg-PennState project group “Insomnia phenotypes – treatment and health consequences” suggests to establish a long-term collaboration to further our understanding about the importance of insomnia subtypes. By doing so, the proposed collaboration is assumed to contribute valuable evidence to the lively debate of health policy makers about finding promising routes for treating insomnia as a prevalent and important health condition. The proposed activities for the collaboration include a “training by research” programme for PhD students and research stays of these students at the partner university for two weeks. The project group will be coordinated by Prof. Vgontzas and Prof. Fernandez-Mendoza (PennState University), and Prof. Riemann and Dr. Spiegelhalder (University of Freiburg Medical Center).

Organisers

Prof. Dr. Dieter Riemann

Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
University of Freiburg

Email Dieter.Riemann@uniklinik-freiburg.de
Homepage https://www.uniklinik-freiburg.de/psych/team/riemann.html

Dr. Dr. Kai Spiegelhalder

Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
University of Freiburg

Email Kai.Spiegelhalder@uniklinik-freiburg.de
Homepage https://www.uniklinik-freiburg.de/psych/team/spiegelhalder.html

Prof. Alexandros Vgontzas

Department of Psychiatry
PennState University

Email axv3@psu.edu
Homepage http://hmc.pennstatehealth.org/display-provider/-/provider/216/alexandros-n-vgontzas-md

Prof. Julio Fernandez-Mendoza

Department of Psychiatry
PennState University

Email jfmendoza@psu.edu
Homepage http://hmc.pennstatehealth.org/display-provider/-/provider/1765/julio-j-fernandez-mendoza-phdcbsm