No neutral gear for the sleep-deprived

• Autores: Jessica Hamzelou
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3041, 2015, pág. 14
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Talma Hendler of Tel Aviv University in Israel is particularly interested in how being short of sleep leaves people with a short fuse. To investigate, Hendler and her colleagues kept 18 adults awake all night. The volunteers had to perform tests, both the day after a good night's sleep and after being awake for 24 hours. When the volunteers were well rested, they performed quickest and most accurately when the background image was neutral. But after a sleepless night, they did lust as poorly whether neutral or emotional images were used. To probe the mechanism in more detail, her team conducted a similar experiment with participants in an fMRI scanner to measure their brain activity. They found that when the volunteers had a good night's sleep, a region called the amygdala fired up only in response to the emotional images. But when they were sleep-deprived, it reacted to neutral images as well. The team also found unusual activity in a part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex. In well-rested people, the two brain regions fired together. But they seemed out of sync when the volunteers were sleep-deprived.