DOHC-LSR
10-24-2007, 12:29 AM
Lack of sleep linked to emotional imbalance, imaging study suggests
In the UC Berkeley study of 26 young adults, half of the subjects were kept awake for 35 hours straight and the other half were allowed a normal night's sleep in that same time period. Then all of the subjects were hooked up to an MRI and shown a series of images, some of them disturbing pictures of graphic violence or gory injuries. Researchers monitored what happened in their brains as each image was shown.
When shown the disturbing images, the sleep-deprived subjects had a significant jump in activity in the amygdala, the section of the brain that puts the body on alert to protect itself. At the same time, activity slowed down in the prefrontal cortex, which controls logical reasoning.
Subjects who had gotten a full night of sleep showed normal brain activity.
What this means for most people is that a sleepless night can cause them to overreact to emotional challenges that they would otherwise be able to tolerate with no trouble, Walker said.
That's why new parents might be more prone to snap at each other over petty arguments, or morning commuters might be more likely to lay on the horn when someone cuts them off instead of just let it go, Walker said.
Read it all here -> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/10/23/MN00SUBTV.DTL
In the UC Berkeley study of 26 young adults, half of the subjects were kept awake for 35 hours straight and the other half were allowed a normal night's sleep in that same time period. Then all of the subjects were hooked up to an MRI and shown a series of images, some of them disturbing pictures of graphic violence or gory injuries. Researchers monitored what happened in their brains as each image was shown.
When shown the disturbing images, the sleep-deprived subjects had a significant jump in activity in the amygdala, the section of the brain that puts the body on alert to protect itself. At the same time, activity slowed down in the prefrontal cortex, which controls logical reasoning.
Subjects who had gotten a full night of sleep showed normal brain activity.
What this means for most people is that a sleepless night can cause them to overreact to emotional challenges that they would otherwise be able to tolerate with no trouble, Walker said.
That's why new parents might be more prone to snap at each other over petty arguments, or morning commuters might be more likely to lay on the horn when someone cuts them off instead of just let it go, Walker said.
Read it all here -> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/10/23/MN00SUBTV.DTL