RSSNewsletterSiteMapFeedback

Home · Weather · Forum · Learning Chinese · Jobs · Shopping
Search This Site
China | International | Business | Government | Environment | Olympics/Sports | Travel/Living in China | Culture/Entertainment | Books & Magazines | Health
Home / Health / News Tools: Save | Print | E-mail | Most Read
Emotions run amok in sleep-deprived brains
Adjust font size:

Without sleep, the emotional centers of our brains dramatically overreact to bad experiences, research now reveals.

"When we're sleep deprived, it's really as if the brain is reverting to more primitive behavior, regressing in terms of the control humans normally have over their emotions," said researcher Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley.

Anyone who has ever gone without a good night's sleep is aware that doing so can make a person emotionally irrational. While past studies have revealed that sleep loss can impair the immune system and brain processes such as learning and memory, there has been surprisingly little research into why sleep deprivation affects emotions, Walker said.

Walker and his colleagues had 26 healthy volunteers either get normal sleep or get sleep deprived, making them stay awake for roughly 35 hours. On the following day, the researchers scanned brain activity in volunteers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they viewed 100 images. These started off as emotionally neutral, such as photos of spoons or baskets, but they became increasingly negative in tone over time -- for instance, pictures of attacking sharks or vipers.

"While we predicted that the emotional centers of the brain would overreact after sleep deprivation, we didn't predict they'd overreact as much as they did," Walker said. "They became more than 60 percent more reactive to negative emotional stimuli. That's a whopping increase -- the emotional parts of the brain just seem to run amok."

The researchers pinpointed this hyperactive response to a shutdown of the prefrontal lobe, a brain region that normally keeps emotions under control. This structure is relatively new in human evolution, "and so it may not yet have adapted ways to cope with certain biological extremes," Walker speculated. "Human beings are one of the few species that really deprive themselves of sleep. It's a real oddity in nature."

In modern life, people often deprive themselves of sleep "almost on a daily basis," Walker said. "Alarm bells should be ringing about that behavior -- no pun intended."

Future research can focus on which components of sleep help restore emotional stability -- "whether it's dreaming REM sleep or slow-wave, non-dreaming forms of sleep," Walker said.

Many psychiatric disorders, "particularly ones involving emotions, seem to be linked with abnormal sleep," he added. "Traditionally people mostly thought the psychiatric disorders were contributing to the sleep abnormalities, but of course it could be the other way around. If we can find out which parts of sleep are most key to emotional stability, we already have a good range of drugs that can push and pull at these kinds of sleep and maybe help treat certain kinds of psychiatric conditions."

The findings are detailed in the Oct. 23 issue of the journal Current Biology.

(Agencies via China Daily October 24, 2007)

Tools: Save | Print | E-mail | Most Read

Comment
Username Password Anonymous
China Archives
Related >>
- Lack of sleep may raise risk of heart attacks, stroke
- Chinese Sleep Later, But Not Longer: Survey
- Over Half of University Students Suffer Ill-health
- Guangzhou Residents Need More Sleep
Most Viewed >>
-20 Tumors Removed from 'Elephant Man'
-HPV also blamed for oral cancer in men
-Medical Service for Foreigners
-Better nutrition in childhood, higher pay when grown up
-Study: all blue-eyed people have common ancestor
SiteMap | About Us | RSS | Newsletter | Feedback

Copyright ? China.org.cn. All Rights Reserved E-mail: webmaster@china.org.cn Tel: 86-10-88828000 京ICP證 040089號

主站蜘蛛池模板: 日本免费无遮挡吸乳视频电影| 没带罩子让他c一节课| 国产极品视觉盛宴| 97久人人做人人妻人人玩精品| 性色AV一区二区三区夜夜嗨| 久久精品国产亚洲av忘忧草18| 欧美日韩视频在线成人| 免费在线观看h片| 老司机亚洲精品影院| 国产强被迫伦姧在线观看无码| **性色生活片毛片| 在线精品91青草国产在线观看| 三人交bangbangbang| 日本三级在线观看免费| 乱人伦一区二区三区| 欧美日韩动态图| 亚洲综合精品伊人久久| 精品无人区乱码麻豆1区2区| 国产不卡视频在线| 高清一本之道加勒比在线| 国产激情视频在线播放| 18禁无遮挡无码国产免费网站| 国邦征服雪婷第二篇| gay同性男男自免费播放| 尤果圈3.2.6破解版| 中文字幕在线免费看| 日本高清视频在线www色| 乱人伦人妻中文字幕在线入口| 欧美又大又粗又爽视频| 亚洲欧美性另类春色| 波多野结衣手机在线视频| 你懂的在线视频| 精品久久久久久无码中文野结衣| 古月娜下面好紧好爽| 老司机午夜在线视频| 国产乱码精品一区二区三区四川人 | 欧美国产亚洲日韩在线二区| 亚洲第一区精品日韩在线播放| 熟女老女人的网站| 亚洲色大成网站www永久男同| 狠狠综合欧美综合欧美色|