Healthy living
Mind matters
Tired and emotional
If you feel less able to cope with what life throws at you after a poor night's sleep, research findings on the effects of sleep deprivation on emotional states may well resonate with you
Scientists found that when volunteers were kept awake for 35 hours, their brain activity dramatically increased in response to images designed to provoke anger or sadness.
The researchers, from the Harvard Medical School and the University of California, Berkeley, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor blood flow in the part of the brain linked to emotional reactions - the amygdala.
According to the study, which was published in the journal Current Biology, 26 healthy people were assigned to either a sleep-deprivation group or a normal sleep group. The next day, their brains were scanned while viewing 100 images. The images were at first emotionally neutral, but became increasingly unpleasant over time.
"We had predicted a potential increase in the emotional reaction from the brain [in people deprived of sleep], but the size of the increase truly surprised us," said Matthew Walker, from the University of California, Berkeley.
"The emotional centres of the brain were over 60 per cent more reactive under conditions of sleep deprivation than in subjects who had obtained a normal night of sleep.
"It is almost as though, without sleep, the brain reverts back to a more primitive pattern of activity, becoming unable to put emotional experiences into context and produce controlled, appropriate responses."
Scientists have known for some time that sleep deprivation impairs a range of bodily functions, including the immune system and metabolism, as well as brain processes, such as learning and memory, the researchers explained. Yet, evidence for the role of sleep in governing our emotional brain state had remained surprisingly scarce until now.
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