Brain Scan Research Shows That Lack Of Sleep Severely Alters Brain Function

Posted on July 25, 2016

As well as affecting many important networks, sleep deprivation prevented normal changes to brain function between the morning and evening.

Sleep is an essential human state which is necessary for maintaining healthy function throughout the body. Therefore, lack of sleep has severe health-related consequences, with the brain being the most affected organ.

Lack of sleep can negatively affect memory, emotional processing and attentional capacities. For example, sleep deprivation has been shown to disrupt functional connectivity in hippocampal circuits (important for memory), and between the amygdala (important for emotion regulation) and executive control regions (involved in processes such as attention, planning, reasoning and cognitive flexibility). The emotional effects of sleep deprivation can be to both alter response patterns to negative things but also enhance reactivity toward positive things.

The study, led by Tobias Kaufmann of University of Oslo, involved 60 young men who completed three resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans – this is used to evaluate connectivity between brain regions when a person is not performing a task.

The study emphasizes the major impact of sleep deprivation on the brain’s connectivity and function, as well as providing evidence that normal morning-to-evening connectivity changes do not occur after a night without sleep.

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Category(s):Sleep Disorders

Source material from PsyPost