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The impact of sleep deprivation on food desire in the human brain
Current epidemiological evidence points to a potential connection between obesity and sleep deprivation. It is unknown, meanwhile, how sleep deprivation affects the brain systems controlling the appetitive food urge in the central nervous system. In this study by Greer, Goldstein & Walker (2013), the authors noted that sleep deprivation causes a substantial reduction in activity in the human insular and frontal cortices, areas involved in appetitive appraisal that govern food choices based on attractiveness, while increasing activity in the amygdala. Furthermore, after sleep deprivation, there is a significant increase in the desire for high-calorie, weight-gain-promoting foods; the magnitude of this increase is predicted by participants’ subjective ratings of the severity of their sleep loss. These findings are further linked to this bidirectional change in the profile of brain activity. The authors comment that the study findings offer an explanation for the brain mechanism by which sleep deprivation may contribute to the onset and maintenance of obesity by increasing subcortical limbic responsivity and reducing activity in higher-order cortical evaluation regions, which in turn influence the choice of foods likely to cause weight gain. [NPID: Obesity, sleep deprivation, fatigue-eating]
Year: 2013
