The VetsConnection Podcast

Ep. 52 - Research Scientist, Lindsey Hildebrand Talks About Sleep Science and Brain Health for Veterans

• Scott McLean • Episode 52

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Do you struggle with sleep? You're far from alone—especially if you've served in the military. In this fascinating deep dive, research scientist Lindsay Hildebrand reveals how the disrupted sleep patterns military personnel experience can persist long after service ends, potentially leading to serious health consequences.

Sleep isn't just about feeling rested. As Hildebrand explains, it's a critical biological process with profound implications for brain health. Poor sleep quality strongly correlates with earlier onset of conditions like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. For veterans trapped in the vicious cycle of anxiety preventing sleep and sleep deprivation worsening anxiety, this connection is particularly troubling.

But there's hope on the horizon. Hildebrand's work with the Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (SCAN) Lab focuses on groundbreaking non-pharmaceutical approaches to sleep disorders. Their research into Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) yielded remarkable results—just 40 seconds of targeted stimulation significantly improved sleep quality by quieting the brain's default mode network, responsible for those racing thoughts keeping you awake.

Even more accessible is their light therapy research, now recruiting for the largest Department of Defense light therapy study ever conducted. This completely remote study provides specially designed glasses participants wear for just 30 minutes each morning, potentially resetting disrupted circadian rhythms without medication.

What makes these approaches revolutionary is their simplicity and effectiveness. Rather than just treating symptoms, they address underlying neurobiological processes, potentially breaking the sleep-anxiety cycle that plagues so many veterans.

Want to participate or learn more? Active duty personnel from any branch and veterans separated within the last five years may qualify for the nationwide light therapy study. Visit the SCAN Lab website through the University of Arizona to see if you're eligible to contribute to this groundbreaking research—and possibly transform your sleep in the process.

Scott McLean:

Welcome to the podcast. I'm Scott McLean. My guest today once again is Lindsay Hildebrand. Now, lindsay was on here before. She's been on the podcast a couple of times. She did an episode for Florida Leads, she did an episode for the Veteran Yoga Project and now she's on again. Lindsay is an amazing young woman. She's on here to promote and talk about well, I'm going to let her give you the name, but she's a research scientist for scan labs. This is how we kind of talked about it before the episode. I didn't want to blow it, so I'm going to let Lindsay explain how you doing Lindsay.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

I'm good Thanks for having me back on yet again.

Scott McLean:

We still have another one in the future sometime.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

I know you keep letting me come back time and time again.

Scott McLean:

I love it Because every time you come back, you come back with something absolutely different than before, which, again, in my opinion and I'm sure I'm not alone in saying this you're an amazing young woman for everything you do and all the help that you bring to the veterans, which is what this is all about. So, research scientist at Scan Lab, let's give us a whole breakdown. We're all ears.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

Lindsay, we're all ears. Oh geez, We'll be here for a while Well that's fine.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

Yes. So I, before I kind of moved into the realm of social work, I'm still involved with the SCAM lab. So we are the social, cognitive and effective neuroscience lab. So what we primarily do is we look into social, cognitive and effective neuroscience factors, primarily towards, you know, military and veterans. So we've done a lot of studies. It's headed by a primary investigator who is Dr Scott Kilgore really wonderful, you know, dod researcher, very well known in the field.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

But one of the primary kind of areas that we look into is how sleep or lack of sleep kind of affects all of those domains. So that's kind of, I would say, our specialty. We're pretty wide, kind of a wide swath, because we're really folks of like anything that really interests us and stuff we usually come up with studies for. But it's really oriented towards looking at, you know, non-pharmacological treatments, for you know specific disorders that we know military service members and veterans kind of deal with in higher proportion compared to the general population. So a lot of the things that we look at are like insomnia, you know. Circadian misalignment, you know we looked at, you know we've done a lot of studies on like post traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury. So I would say kind of more common or like higher proportion that of disorders that veterans and, you know, military service members as a result of their service kind of experience and a little bit more commonly than you would typically see within a normal population.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

So that's what we kind of do so. Like I said, we kind of range across the board for a lot of things.

Scott McLean:

So you mentioned there's no pharmaceuticals involved, right?

Scott McLean:

So we tend which I'm sorry, which has always been a bone of contention for a lot of veterans that medication. They always just give me pills and I'm talking about the va and I I will never disparage the va in any way, shape or form. They've helped me immensely and I will never disparage the VA in any way, shape or form. They've helped me immensely. But people I talk to have said that, oh, all they want to do is give me pills. All they want to do is give me pills and I know that snowballs sometimes and maybe it sounds worse than it really is, but it is a thing with veterans. I know that for a fact. So you guys avoid that.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

Yeah, we really try to look at kind of advancing technologies. So some of the stuff we've used previously are kind of light therapy. That's the one that this study kind of concerns and is the treatment and then for it. But we've also used different things. Like you know, transcranial magnetic stimulation is one of our other big tools. It's something that is getting kind of a little bit more common in the VA, especially at larger VA centers like San Diego.

Scott McLean:

You know, minneapolis, like Explain more about what that is.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

Transcranial magnetic stimulation depends on kind of.

Scott McLean:

I'll try not to get too nerdy into the science oh, get as nerdy as you want, lindsay, all right.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

Well, that's the best that I do so what we, you know what transcranial magnetic stimulation essentially sends out specific types of pulses towards the brain. So there's specific areas that we localize to target. So what you tend to see transcranial magnetic stimulation being used for a lot of the times is either to inhibit activity or to increase certain activity by kind of shooting these types of specific wavelength frequencies towards specific areas of the brain. So a lot of the times, I think at the VA, we tend to see them using it for treatment of kind of like major depressive disorder and anxiety. They tend to use it towards, like, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, because that's one of the common areas that tends to either be like just kind of misaligned in terms of, you know, in terms of like neurobiology and it's linked to those specific types of mood disorders. So that's where you'll see it kind of used. But it's a really it's like this huge machine and if we, you know, we use MRI to basically map like where we want to target the stimulation. We used it very specifically within a clinical trial. We actually have a second clinical trial coming up that's going to be even larger and longer is using transcranial magnetic stimulation for treatment of insomnia, and so we used it on, we use it on a specific brain network called the default mode network.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

So that's associated with a lot of like rumination, mind wandering, so kind of that. You know, when you get into bed and say you do have like insomnia, right, it's kind of hard to turn down the noise, right, you're kind of sitting there, your mind's kind of going on overdrive, like you're kind of left to your own devices. So a lot of that, a lot of that like pre-bedtime anxiety we tend to find kind of prevents one sleep onset. You're spending more time in bed than time asleep. When it comes to sleep, what we're looking at is really efficiency. So the time that you know you spend in bed we want you to sleep right. People who have insomnia a lot of the time spend a really prolonged time in bed but not a lot of time asleep, and not a lot of time asleep at the specific stages that they kind of need in order to feel a lot of those like restorative effects and stuff.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

So we use this particular machine, you know the transcranial magnetic stimulation, to kind of suppress the default mode network, to kind of tune down a lot of those ruminating thoughts and stuff. And what we found in our study is that you know it was effective, for you know, during our pilot, like for the 20 folks that came through for our randomized control trial and stuff at the time, that they got like the actual, active, real transcranial magnetic stimulation versus when they got like the placebo stimulation, and so, as we saw, you know, better total sleep time, better sleep efficiency and better what we would call wake sleep onset or WASO, and so, essentially, like you know, people who you know woke up in the middle of the night, they wouldn't, you know, spend as much time like awake during that, during those periods of kind of awakenings, during the actual like sleep period before what we would call your final awakening, like the final time that you wake up. So so pretty cool. We got a second phase coming down the pipeline. So if anybody's in Arizona that's listening to this, it's available for you. So, yeah, so it's a pretty cool, pretty cool study.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

But we also use, like I said, the focusing on a lot more of the circadian component, because when it comes to sleep, there's really two different processes. So this is called like the two step process of sleep. So there's the natural kind of homeostatic drive, what we call like sleep drive or sleep pressure, and then there's the circadian aspect of it. So those two kind of work in conjunction and in tandem with each other but they can both get misaligned and what we tend to find is that's what really kind of propels or perpetuates a lot of insomnia, particularly for folks that have like irregular. You know sleep-wake cycles like that might get interrupted by, you know, being on CQ while they're in service, like staff duty. You know sleep-wake cycles like that might get interrupted by, you know being on CQ while they're in service, like staff duty, you know training exercises yeah different things like that.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

But even like on the outside with civilian work like if you're on like a shift work schedule and stuff, it interrupts kind of both of those processes. So we use kind of light therapy modalities to kind of help with that circadian aspect, because theoretically you kind of want both of those things aligned at the same time so that way you can optimize your sleep.

Scott McLean:

So I have a couple of things to say. I understand the shift work. When I first went into US Customs back in 1997 and I got I was working at the Miami International Airport behind the scenes stuff, we changed our shifts every two weeks. We went midnight to eight and four to midnight and then 12 to eight and eight to four every two weeks. I didn't even do that in the military. Talk about getting just totally out of alignment. So I understand all of that firsthand. I totally get that.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

The magnetic stimulation is that how long? Yeah, you can call it TMS, because you know, everything has to be an acronym. We can call it TMS.

Scott McLean:

TMS. There you go, TMS. How long does each session last and how many sessions before results start to show up?

Lindsey Hildebrand:

So in our initial trial we only did a stimulation for 40 seconds. 40 seconds like that, that was for both the active and the placebo. Where you know you can do, there are longer kind of transcranial magnetic stimulation protocols out there, depending on what you're targeting. But for this initial trial we were like we were like 40 seconds, like 40 seconds of what we would call a continuous theta burst, so that's a very specific wavelength of the transcranial magnetic stimulation. There's also something called ITBS, so that kind of increases activity, ctbs suppresses and stuff are like quiets down. So which is what we were going for when we were targeting the default mode network specifically.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

So yeah, like it's, it doesn't take much, like we, you know, think about it, 40 seconds is not a long time period at all and stuff. And we saw, you know, statistically significant improvements in total sleep time, sleep efficiency and something that short, which is, you know, really great. Hopefully for, you know, this next round of piloting and stuff, we're going to be doing multiple iterations of TMS and stuff. So not just because once again we only did one single actual stimulation for 40 seconds. This time our folks are going to be coming in week to week to week and suffer an extended protocol and receiving multiple transcranial magnetic stimulation sessions in order to see, kind of one, the threshold of when we start to see those changes and then also how long those changes last after receiving transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Scott McLean:

So a veteran goes in.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

This is just so, unfortunately, this study will not be open to veterans. This one is only for those that are on active duty but it's going to be, you said eventually actually no, you know I might have misspoke. It'll be open to because it's an in-person study at the university of arizona, which is in tucson, not to be mixed up with asu, which is in phoenix.

Scott McLean:

I always have to make that distinction because otherwise people will be like I don't know where this is and so we are recruiting folks that have like active insomnia, but like veterans, theoretically could go in.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

it's just we're not specifically recruiting for veterans, or?

Scott McLean:

Okay.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

So misspoke on that. My apologies.

Scott McLean:

That's fine, that's fine, that's fine. So they go in the, the, the, the participant goes in and 40 seconds. They get set up in 40 seconds. And is that like boom like, or do they come in like every other day, or is it a continuous it?

Lindsey Hildebrand:

depends on the protocol, like there's like a certain number of sessions that will be done per week and stuff for about a 12 to 14 week treatment period, once we get the brain maps and stuff. So we have folks that need to go into the MRI because we need to know the location of specific centers of the brain that we would be targeting for transcranial magnetic stimulation. So so, yeah, like very exciting, exciting trial and it really is a cool non-pharmacological device that we're seeing a lot of efficacy with a bunch of different disorders. So so, really, really cool stuff and right now we, like I said, said we kind of focus on that and then also our light therapy very specifically, and so, once again, another non-pharmacological device. So, but it's really fun because it's like it's a randomized control trial and so you know, we're testing to see like, hey, is this actually helping, you know, as people sleep and mood regulation, and it's a study that, like I said, with this one we're really trying to target that circadian aspects of sleep.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

We tend to find a lot of folks getting out of the military a lot of their circadian is misaligned and so because, like you know, your your circadian cycles, how it typically works is it runs on a 24-hour clock, right, and we have a bunch of different types of circadian rhythms want to dispel that myth. There's certain peak you know kind of peak times that hormones are released and stuff. That's a circadian rhythm, different types of functioning like throughout the body, like kind of falls in that 24 hour cycle. Same thing happens with sleep, right. I think that's the one that most people think about when we talk about circadian rhythm, like. That's like the first one. And so there's this really cool part of your brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus or your SCN. So it is the thing that kind of gives you the wakefulness and alerting that is cued by, you know, daylight and nighttime, right, neurobiologically speaking, that's the way we evolved, right. We evolved to like do stuff during the day and then at night to reduce risk, you know, falling asleep and getting that restfulness. You know, especially with a lot of like military folks right, that that circadian cycle can really get thrown off. One, you know, if you're working in a skiff or something like that, where you're not getting a lot of, you know, sunlight, you know you're working weird shifts where your you know your body clock's kind of getting thrown off because you're awake at night and then you know you're going to sleep during the day and stuff.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

A lot of those have very long-term implications.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

But we know, especially about sleep and kind of coming through the threshold and you know, connecting this to a lot of the work that I do with neurodegenerative disorders and stuff is that sleep is like one of the crucial processes that we see, kind of predicting, I would say, earlier onset of neurodegenerative disorders but also the likelihood that folks get neurodegenerative disorders. But also the likelihood that folks get neurodegenerative disorders. These are things, like you know, alzheimer's, parkinson's, lewy body dementia and stuff like sleep is like one of the most critical kind of health components that we see having that predictive value, especially for folks that aren't getting like good, consistent sleep, like I could probably list off all of the comorbidities that sleep is tied to, and so it's tied to almost every single one of them. And so then, by all means, that that relationship gets very complicated, right, because it's really this. It's really like this critical factor, and the easiest one that I can think about throwing out is like anxiety, right, a lot of our folks that have insomnia and stuff also tend to have like anxiety.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

So, and it's this really awful perpetual cycle where it's like you know you're anxious during the day, so you come into bed wired right and then you can't get enough sleep and but then because you don't get enough sleep, right like your your mood's thrown off, you have a lot of like emotional dysregulation, right, and it feeds into that anxiety because you're worried about going into bed and you're not going to get enough sleep and that cycle just kind of continues over and over and over again.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

So what we're really trying to, you know, promote because sometimes it's easier to change very specific behaviors, like thinking about sleep and different things. Sometimes it's easier to change that initially than it is to, you know, thinking about, you know kind of mood disorders, like, you know, depression, anxiety, like even post-traumatic stress, right, getting to the root of those things is really important. But it's also like those baseline kind of behaviors, like like sleep and stuff, can kind of help that process as well, to help that treatment process. So you know, we're really trying to take a look at what can we do to help improve people's sleep and so so that way, you know, when it comes to not just insomnia but all of these other kind of comorbid disorders and stuff, is this a way that could also help for people that have a lot of emotional dysregulation, or like, can it also help with mood regulation and stuff, just as a result of getting better sleep at night Because you have more resources during the day.

Scott McLean:

It's that anticipation like am I going to sleep, and you go to bed thinking that and then, when you're not sleeping, turns into frustration, and frustration and anxiety mixed together is not a good feeling yeah, it's really not a good feeling, which just snowballs every. Definitely so. The light therapy is that red light therapy, or is it white light or is it?

Lindsey Hildebrand:

We use different types of variable wavelength light. We take a look across a bunch of different ones. So we look at, you know, white, blue, red, there's even like purple and green, because this is a double-blinded randomized control trial.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

I was like I can't say which ones you'll be receiving, for you know, for this specifically, but we are looking at the effects of bright light, so bright light wavelengths, on, you know, on specific types of factors like sleep, and when we look at sleep we're looking at a bunch of different bunch of different kind of variables. So, like I said, I'll take this in a glance over of the nerdy process of sleep, but there and talk about sleep architecture, like a like a good, like a good sleep person. So we'll, I'm sure my, my PI, will be proud if I can explain this well.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

So, you know, when it comes to sleep, there there's a lot of different variables that we kind of specifically look at sleep apnea, right, you had to like go to an actual sleep clinic and probably do something called a polysomnography. What that polysomnography does is does sleep stage grading. So there's very specific kind of electrical signals, respiratory signals and heart rate signals, that kind of point to when you drop into specific stages of sleep, and so the way it kind of breaks down is you have your non REM stages. So your REM or rapid eye movement stage is what we would associate with the dreaming state, right.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

So very early on, when you first fall into sleep, right, you go into N1. So that's kind of like your, I would say, the most like when you're awake, right, so it's like that very light level of sleep. Your N2 is where you get a little bit deeper into the sleep but there's still kind of like spikes of activity. And then your N3 is really that really important kind of non-REM stage. That's what we call like your slow wave, your slow wave sleep, it's your deep sleep. That's like the sleep where it really like. Your slow wave, your slow wave sleep, it's your deep sleep, that's like the sleep where it really like you slow down. And a lot of that deep wave sleep has really high implications, especially when it comes to restoration. So we know in particular that slow wave sleep has a lot to do with the glymphatic system. So that's your brain's kind of like wasting process.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

That's the time when, like pruning happens, a lot of the, a lot of the gunk in your brain kind of gets washed out during that time as a result of that slow wave sleep and so so that happens really during the first half of the night in more proportion, so you're not really in as much dream state during that time and then kind of during the last half of your sleep it flips where you're spending a lot more time in that REM stage, in that dreaming stage, where it's mind really active, it almost looks like it's awake, but your body's, you know, catatonic, it's like you're not moving and stuff.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

So it's it's a little bit different. So those are kind of the stages that you know we're looking at is like, you know, as a result of kind of getting more of your circadian aligned right, are you spending more time in very specific stages and especially some of those helpful stages like N3? And is that helping with like different processes, especially as it relates to mood regulation, right? And so you know we're kind of taking a look at, you know the percentage of time we're looking at basic things. Like you know how much time are you just in total spending asleep? How many times are you waking up? How long are you spending? You know spending when you are awake and like you have those awakenings like is it really short or are you spending like 15 plus minutes like up during your awakenings and stuff Like how long is it taking you to like go to sleep from the time you get into bed versus like the time that?

Lindsey Hildebrand:

you actually like fall asleep and stuff. So you know we're grading that through a couple different measures. So we used to have like this really cool five channel EEG headband. We did our sub study with that. But our folks that are in this study are just going to wear a Fitbit at night Really awesome like sleep stage grader. And so we, you know we kind of track your metrics through that and the nice thing is you get, as long as you're compliant with the study and you go through, you get to keep that Fitbit at the end.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

You don't want it back so yeah.

Scott McLean:

So like so that way. So they do this at home, they do this.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

Yep, this is 100%. I guess I'll talk a little bit about the protocol.

Scott McLean:

I was going to ask you that, like what's the process, is it?

Lindsey Hildebrand:

Yeah, so what we're looking at, like I said, is the effect of this, of this light therapy treatment, on different sleep and mood regulation measures and stuff. So what we have people do it is a hundred percent remote study. It can be, done anywhere in the United States. So it doesn't matter where you live and stuff. We ship you your equipment as long as you meet the criteria for entering our study.

Scott McLean:

And I'm going to ask you about that after this.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

Yeah, don't worry, we'll go through that. So what we'll do is like, essentially, we, you know, we send out equipment, so you'll get two pairs of light therapy glasses. It's really cool. You just like flick them on for 30 minutes in the morning, anytime from 6 am to 11 am. Flick them on, wear them, you can do, you know dishes, read the paper, like, do, do whatever, and so they're only set for that time, so like as, wherever you're at, it's synced up to Bluetooth, so it's synced up to, like, your, your time zone and your clock, and so during that time, you know, we, you know, we just have you wear them. It's a very passive device and stuff, so pretty easy to wear. I would say it's like one of the easiest devices that you know we're not, you know, dragging a clunky machine.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

We all have to scan your brain. You literally just got to flick them on and wear them for 30 minutes. So it's pretty like, like I said, pretty low impact. And so during that time we also send you some questionnaires during that period for you to to kind of, you know report like you know how did you sleep last night and stuff like what's your level of fatigue? You know waking up, you know what, you know how's your mood today, like different things like that. So we asked a bunch of different questionnaires that you fill out. The questionnaires take like 10 minutes.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

We, on the beginning, before you start kind of wearing the glasses, we have you go through more of like a 30 minute battery to kind of get a better idea of like your baseline.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

Have you go through more of like a 30 minute battery to kind of get a better idea of like your baseline, kind of like mood and just different like demographic characteristics and like your experiences like the military, different things like that.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

And then you actually go into the treatment period so where you'll wear one set of glasses for two weeks for 30 minutes a day, and then we just ask that you wear your Fitbit at night and stuff to track your sleep metrics, so you just do that. Then we have a we call it like a two week washout period where you're not wearing any glasses, you're still wearing your Fitbit, you're still, you know, taking your daily surveys, but you don't, you don't have to wear the glasses or anything like that. Then the the following two weeks, so it's a six week. Uh yeah, six week protocol. The following two weeks, so it's a six-week protocol. The following two weeks, you wear the other set of glasses, do the same exact thing, wear your Fitbit at night, do your questionnaires during the day and then that's end of treatment. We do our end of treatment or end of protocol surveys. You ship back the glasses, you get to keep the Fitbit and if you're 100% compliant with the study, you also get a nice $500 gift card.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

So not a bad day not a bad day and stuff.

Scott McLean:

I'll sign up 10 times a year.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

Unfortunately, you can only complete it once.

Scott McLean:

There's people I was saying that jokingly with this people that Ooh.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

I will say Christmas is coming.

Scott McLean:

I need some sleep study stuff. Yeah, I need some sleep study money.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

Yes, so I do want to get into the inclusion criteria, since you did you did mention that. So we are looking for anyone who is actively serving. So what that means is it you know any branch, any components, so you, you can be reserve, you can be national guard, you can be active duty and stuff welcome to everybody. And so we can ship within the domestic united states. So so, like we can also do alaska, hawaii and like the, the continental 48. Unfortunately we know there's a lot of folks that are okonis and stuff. We just don't have the capacity, um, to do to do that. So, sorry, folks that are posted overseas. We're hoping to change that. But now we also have an arm of the study that's opened up to veterans. So in total it's the largest light therapy trial that will ever be done with the DOD thus far, and so it is 400 service members and or veterans that we need to recruit for this study. If you're a veteran, as long as you've separated within the past five years and stuff, you're allowed to enter into this study as well. And so you know, for folks who have questions about like hey, how do you know, like that this person isn't like is who they say they are, we vet folks coming into the study. So we look at active duty folks through the global list directory and then for veterans we ask that you provide a redacted portion of a DD-214. And so that's really. It so pretty much like that. There's also kind of specific inclusion exclusion criteria as it relates to sleep and mood. But the easiest way to figure out whether you're eligible for the study is to go through our screener. So Scott provided you the flyer with the QR code and also the URL with the link and stuff. So feel free, you can go through the screener, see if you make it. If at that point you are eligible, you'll be contacted by a study coordinator for our bright light glasses study to start coordinating shipment and training and getting you onboarded into the actual study. So we try and make it pretty seamless and pretty easy. Thus far we've had 150 plus folks already go through the protocol from all different branches, from all different types of MOSs and stuff.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

But, like I said, this veteran specific, this veteran specific kind of arm just opened up. We just got approved for it and we would love to hear very specifically about you know veterans in particular, because we know there's a lot of folks that you know still struggle with insomnia, especially after they leave, or struggle with, you know, mood dysregulation, but also just struggle with sleep in general, even after leaving the service. So we were really wanting to capture that arm. But also taking a look at you know their experiences with getting things like sleep, like sleep treatment, like you know, have you been treated for? You know any any of your sleep concerns, like, have they been addressed and stuff.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

So we're also looking at it from in terms of, like, a resource gap, but also in terms of you know how easily this could be implemented at the DOD but also at, you know, the VA, to be hopefully offered as a treatment protocol in the future once we kind of do a little bit more, a little bit more research and a little bit more phasing with our, with our research.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

But right now it's looking, you know, pretty promising thus far. That you know promising that you know we're going to accomplish our, you know our treatment goal and then hopefully assess the efficacy of this treatment. Like I said, don't know because it's blinded until the study closes, can't say, like, exactly what we're going to find and stuff, but you know we're we're just really trying to assess, like whether this is something that you know is feasible or implementation Right. I think it's that's really important, really important right, because it's not a good treatment if people don't want to use it right and don't and don't find it easy to use right. But also to to make sure that it that it's efficacious amongst a bunch of different populations, right that and that is generalizable enough to to make it effective across the board so the tms, the magnetic stimulation, yeah, you got it.

Scott McLean:

Yeah, so that is for active duty.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

It's open to anybody that's in and around the.

Scott McLean:

Arizona area.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

It hasn't opened up yet. I don't know when it's going to open up. It's a very lengthy protocol. But so if you're in Arizona and you're interested, just keep your eyes peeled. You can find us on Google. You can just type in you know, scan, just keep your eyes peeled. You can find us on Google. You can just type in you know, scan Lab University of Arizona. As soon as the study opens up, we usually post it. There's usually a link to the screener at that point. So just you know, kind of keep if you're interested in that. If you're also interested in some of the results that we published, there's a couple of papers out if you want to read about the treatment protocol. I wrote a publication on how we did essentially that first pilot round. My colleague, elisa Husky, posted this amazing paper on the neuroscientific aspects of why the transcranial magnetic stimulation really helped with certain sleep aspects. So yeah, take a look at those papers if you really are feeling nerdy and wanna take a look at some scientific publications.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

But we, yeah, and then you know, just keep your eyes peeled for that coming up. Hopefully we'll be launching sometime in the next year. So, like I said, just feel free to kind of take a look if you're in and around the Arizona area. Like I said, it's an in-person study. So look, if you're in and around the the arizona area. Like I said, it's an in-person study. So obviously, if you're willing to travel in by all means and stuff, you won't get reimbursed for it and stuff. Maybe there, maybe there's people who want to, but so I'll leave it open.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

But and the light therapy yeah is national is national so yeah, and it's anytime it like, sorry, not anytime any like anywhere right. So that's for veterans and active duty yeah, very specifically so, and I've gotten some questions before about whether, if you're a dod civilian, if you're a contractor, you know if you're a spouse, and stuff unfortunately is not opened up to y'all unless you were you know. Also, you know a veteran that has been separated for from the military within the past five years, because I know a lot of folks end up getting out and go right into that dod, civilian and contractor.

Scott McLean:

So it's hard to say no to people too.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

It is and like I promise you, it is not anything against you specifically, it's just when it comes to research we have it comes to safety Right.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

So, there's when we screen for inclusion and exclusion, it's to make sure that you know one, we're targeting the right population, you know one we're targeting the right population right and that you know we're following things ethically according to our institutional review board and the safety standards we have set up. And then, just like I said, it comes down to a safety standpoint, like like if you're not included, just please know not everybody makes it into the study, right and stuff. Like we, it's a clinical trial, so we have like pretty strict, you know, inclusion, exclusion criteria. But you know, like, once again, anybody can go through the screener and stuff and see if you, if you make it in, it really isn't. Like I said, I would love, like once we get to a phase three clinical trial. You know, especially when it comes to research, you know we're very strategic about like you know how this gets out in the population how we test it.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

To research, right, you have to pilot test it. So there was an initial trial of this where we were like hey, does this even work? Like, does this concept even work?

Scott McLean:

in a very small population.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

Then we usually move on to, like, you know, a second trial where we're testing it in like a generalized population, and then there's usually like a phase three and a phase four, like phase three being, like, hey, you're going to test it, you know, in the actual population it's intended for.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

In phase four, in the actual setting and population it's intended for.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

So, you know, it's very strategic in the way that we do things so that we can, one, make sure that we're interpreting the results correctly and then also understanding, once again, who this works for why does it work for them? And stuff in like how they can get the most out of this treatment, which I all think are really important things to consider when it comes to different types of treatment modalities. Right Is, like you, for the folks who are going to be, like, implementing this right, it's important for them to know, like, hey, who is going to be a good match for this type of therapy and stuff, because sometimes it's not one going to be a good match for this type of therapy and stuff, cause sometimes it's not one, or treatment like it's not a one size fits all solution. And so, you know, making sure that we develop those guidelines just makes it more likely that whoever does receive that treatment, it's going to be efficacious for them, it's going to be something that actually helps them at the end of the day and stuff.

Scott McLean:

So Is an ongoing or is there a time frame or we?

Lindsey Hildebrand:

would love to close this out as soon as possible. So, like you know, search in the masses, right.

Scott McLean:

Do you have a number that you have to reach to get your sample?

Lindsey Hildebrand:

400 nationwide.

Scott McLean:

How many?

Lindsey Hildebrand:

400, nationwide 400, okay, yeah, so we still have a pretty significant way to go. I wouldn't say significant like, because we're at the point where you know we're getting about like halfway through our goal and so so you know, I mind you 400 folks for any any trial is like that's a lot.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

This is the biggest light study that is currently being done in the DOD. So like it is not an easy target, but obviously like the sooner we get done right, the sooner we can unblind and publish those results, because we would love to, you know, we would love to get this out there like, make it, you know, publish these results, like present on them and stuff. And you know, the sooner we can do that, the sooner we could kind of churn through kind of the next phase, the next type of testing.

Scott McLean:

Yeah, then make it mainstream right.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

And give those deliverables right, because that process is, you know, it's very strategic but it's also very slow. Right, research moves a little, both quickly and slowly. It's a really big dichotomy.

Scott McLean:

I've learned a lot about research from my wife. She loves, loves, loves, research, loves it's that phd life.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

It's absolutely loves research.

Scott McLean:

Yes, yes, yeah um, yeah, we do too. Yeah, well, evidently you do too yeah, I'll say that amongst I.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

I feel like I could make that that statement for the entire lab.

Scott McLean:

It's like we do love the research Research nerds. I love research nerds.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

Yeah, we 100% are.

Scott McLean:

The world needs research nerds, and I say that without joking, all kidding aside. The world needs people like you, lindsay, and the people in your lab and the people that do research to make this stuff happen. It's it's kind of one of those uh, just like in the shadows type thing. They never get the credit, never get the recognition. You know those researches. It always goes to the companies, corporations you know.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

Well, I guess I'll give a shout to make sure at least I'm not the only one that's highlighted and stuff like scott kilgore, who's the pi for the study brilliant, I have to thank him because he, you know, this is his brainchild, like and he's done work for 20 plus years and in the dod and like continues to just keep on, keep on contributing, you know, for our study coordinators I have worked so hard on the study gabriella franca, lana lolly and and devin ermis, amazing, amazing folks. And so please, like, definitely, if you're in the study and stuff, give them props. And then obviously, I'd be without my postdocs, uh, elisa, elisa husky, who has helped immensely with those projects, and then also David Nagelstock, and so they're all still there at the lab still doing really amazing work for this particular study. So I would be remiss if I didn't give them a shout out, because they're the ones that make it turn day by day, by day.

Scott McLean:

Yes, love that, love that Selfless is the way to be. Let everybody know who everybody is, very important people in this. Well, did we miss anything? I?

Lindsey Hildebrand:

don't think so you. Let me drone on for so long I was asleep and magnetic stimulation and light therapy and all this stuff we're doing. So, like I said, like absolutely grateful for the fact that you let me pop on to hear as many of times and let me ramble on my nerd platform.

Scott McLean:

So, not only are you my favorite guest for the number of times you've come on in this future episodes that we've talked about, but you are a podcaster's dream. It's autopilot, Like I can just sit back and just let let it go. The information flies, it comes across clean and the podcast and just I just need to sit here and just okay, keep going, Keep going.

Lindsey Hildebrand:

I love it. Being like you can't stop me from going on specific nerd rants. I feel, like that's more of the case.

Scott McLean:

That's perfect. Well, lindsay, again, thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate you. I appreciate all you do for veterans, and just stick around. I'm going to do my outro. That I haven't done in a month because I took about three weeks to a month off. So if I blow this, I'm not even going to edit it, it just is what it is. I want to thank you for listening. I appreciate you, your listeners, the engine that runs this machine and the machine is running pretty well now. Thanks to you, and if you liked it, share it. If you didn't like it. Well, thanks for listening for 47 minutes. Yeah, and stick around. There is a public service announcement at the end of this. That's pretty informative for veterans and family of veterans and anybody that's in maybe crisis. Take a listen and, yep, we built another bridge today and this was a research bridge. I like research bridges. I want to thank Lindsay Hildebrand again for coming on. You'll be hearing her again and you'll be hearing me again next week.

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Scott McLean

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