心理疾病已经成为重要的公共卫生问题，而睡眠通过情绪调节在心理疾病发病中的重要地位得到越来越多重视，现有研究初步揭示了早期睡眠与情绪识别及调控存在一定关系，但其背后的神经机制尚未得到很好研究，且揭示睡眠对婴儿社会-情绪发展之间因果关系的干预研究缺乏，也使得早期干预缺乏有力的理论依据支撑。本研究将通过建立婴幼儿睡眠研究出生队列，利用婴儿社会-情绪发展研究特定任务，并结合近红外脑功能成像与眼动追踪技术同步使用，从行为-神经生理-功能影像三个层面，探索婴儿社会-情绪发展的特点，以及不同睡眠特征（睡眠时间、节律以及睡眠质量）下婴儿社会-情绪的发展轨迹，最后将通过持续9个月的婴儿睡眠行为干预，观察睡眠干预对婴幼儿社会-情绪发展的影响，及其通过睡眠中介的效应大小。研究不仅是对现有的睡眠对情绪调节功能影响模型在婴幼儿阶段的拓展，更将为早期睡眠干预改善情绪调节能力，进而预防心理疾病提供新的理论依据。

Mental health problems affect 10–20% of children and adolescents worldwide and account for a large portion of the global burden of diseases. A growing body of literature suggests that sleep disturbance (e.g., insomnia, sleep deprivation) may result in emotional distress, which in turn may precipitate mood disorders. Recent neuroimaging and neurophysiological findings converge to suggest that emotional networks are activated during sleep. In addition, emotional activation during sleep may be a necessary factor for emotional maturation, and the emergence and maintenance of consciousness in the developing brain. Recent studies support the role of sleep in emotional maturity of the human. Since as early as the 13th week of gestation and neonatal period, smiles and other expressions are extremely common, especially during active REM sleep. Also, it was shown that sleep-state transitions characterized by shifts between quiet sleep and wakefulness are important for an optimal emotional and cognitive development. But the studies in early childhood are really scarce compared with those in adults and it makes difficult to draw the conclusion that early sleep intervention would positively affect emotional well-being, and conversely, certain emotions may lead to compromised sleep. Thus, our study proposes three studies by first developing clinical-friendly behavioral tests to categorize infants’ social-emotional development. Then we validate and evaluate these methods in a longitudinal study, and relate them with sleep and subsequent cognitive and communicative development. Finally, we employ infant sleep intervention protocol to explore the causal relationship of sleep and early sleep-emotional development. The study will provide a better understanding of the multifaceted role of sleep in emotional functions and further demonstrate key component of sleep in mental health and well-being in infants.