News and Updates
October 2025
Cape Town Finishes Baseline fMRI Data Collection
The fMRI component of our study - which only occurs in Cape Town - has been successfully completed!
Over the past several months, 45 adolescents took part in brain imaging sessions at CUBIC, located in the Neuroscience Institute at UCT. During these sessions, we captured detailed images of the brain while participants played a fun, interactive game that we designed.
The data will help us understand how sleep patterns may shape the way the adolescent brain responds to challenges and rewards — an important step toward learning more about how sleep supports healthy emotional development.
We’re proud to share that data collection ran smoothly thanks to the hard work and collaboration of our dedicated research team, the staff at CUBIC, and—most importantly—the enthusiastic involvement of the participants and their families. A huge thank-you to everyone who contributed to making this phase of the project such a success! Our next fMRI data collection sessions will happen in 2027. We’re now moving into the data analysis stage and look forward to sharing our findings as they emerge.
October 2025
Baseline Data Collection Complete at All Sites!
August 2025
Team Meeting in Makhanda
We reviewed all measures recorded and progress made on the scoring of those measures, as well as developed a plan for analyses moving forward.
We had some training for interviews, with some members of the Coventry team joining us online.
In the midst of this intense year-in-review, we were hosted to a heartwarming and scrumptious South African potjiekos by Prof Davy and his family.
On the last day, we went out as a team to visit the participating schools in Makhanda and share some time together in an outdoors activity.
We’re excited to share that baseline data collection ran smoothly across sites! Thank you to our participants, partnering schools, and all who helped ensure we were able to collect all that we needed.
After all sites were nearly done with Year 1 of data collection, it was time for us to gather, reflect, analyse and project for Year 2 of data collection. Our first ever team meeting in 2024 had been hosted by our Coventry team. This year, in 2025, we all converged to Makhanda, Eastern Cape in South Africa in early August (heart of winter this side of the Equator).
May 2024
Team Meeting in Coventry
Our team recently gathered in Coventry in the United Kingdom for our annual meeting, bringing together colleagues from all our partner sites. Over the course of the week, we finalised key study details and made sure everything is in place for the start of data collection.
We also had a few of our LEEs join both online and in person, which really rounded out the team and gave us insights from a wonderfully diverse mix of voices.
Beyond the meeting room, it was great to explore Coventry, connect as a team, and learn from one another as we gear up for baseline data collection. We’re excited for the year ahead and grateful for the energy and collaboration that came out of this gathering.
The agenda was packed:
Our 3 sites shared their experience of the intense data collections which had happened over the past year, the difficulties and complexities, but mainly the profound joys of becoming a team, and the rich interactions with our lived experience experts and the study participants (the true sleepchampzzz 🏆).
Of course, as an assembly of slight geeks, we also needed to have a peak at our measures and asserted that our questionnaires all passed tests of validity in all 3 sites (Coventry, Cape Town, and Makhanda).
February 2025
Baseline Data Collection Ongoing at All Sites
We can now share that all 3 sites have begun Baseline data collection. The Coventry site began in September 2024, with another session starting now, and the Cape Town and Makhanda sites have begun in February 2025.
