Sleep in the Developing Brain With Dr. Kristin Seaborg

Sleep plays a critical role in brain development, learning, memory, and behavior throughout childhood and adolescence. In this episode, Dr. Kristin Seaborg discusses how sleep architecture changes across development, the impact of sleep disorders on attention, headaches, epilepsy, and neurodevelopmental conditions, and why neurologists should routinely assess sleep in pediatric patients. Learn practical approaches to recognizing sleep problems, including obstructive sleep apnea and insomnia, and how improving sleep can enhance neurologic and cognitive outcomes.
In this episode, Casey S. Albin, MD, FAAN, speaks with Kristin Seaborg, MD, author of the article "Sleep in the Developing Brain" in the Continuum® August 2026 Sleep Neurology issue.
Dr. Albin is a Continuum® Audio interviewer, associate editor of media engagement, and an assistant professor of neurology and neurosurgery at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dr. Seaborg is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Madison, Wisconsin.
Additional Resources
Read the article: Sleep in the Developing Brain
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Earn CME (available only to AAN members): continpub.com/AudioCME
Continuum® Aloud (verbatim audio-book style recordings of articles available only to Continuum® subscribers): continpub.com/Aloud
More about the American Academy of Neurology: aan.com
Social Media
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@ContinuumAAN
Host: @caseyalbin
Guest: @KristinSeaborg
Full episode transcript available here
Dr Albin: In neurology and life, we are all looking for the secret to being attentive, focused, and engaged, and we certainly want that for our children. And what if the answer to all of that was just in sleep?
Dr Jones: This is Dr. Lyell Jones, Editor-in-Chief of Continuum. Thank you for listening to Continuum Audio. Be sure to visit the links in the episode notes for information about earning CME, subscribing to the journal, and exclusive access to interviews not featured on the podcast.
Dr Albin: Hello, this is Dr. Casey Albin. Today I'm interviewing Dr. Kristin Seaborg about her article on sleep in the developing brain. This article appears in the August 2026 Continuum issue on the neurology of sleep. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Seaborg. Thank you so much for being here. I learned a lot from your article. Can you just briefly introduce yourself to the audience?
Dr Seaborg: Sure. Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. My name is Kristin Seaborg. I'm a pediatric neurologist and sleep neurologist at the University of Wisconsin Medicine. I also run the pediatric sleep neurology clinic at UW Madison.
Dr Albin: That is the perfect person to be writing this article. And every time I read an article about pediatric neurology, I am just so struck that like little tiny humans are not small adults, that they actually have a totally different neurobiology. They are in different stages of…