Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), UC Berkeley researchers scanned the brains of 23 healthy young adults, first after a normal night’s sleep and next, after a sleepless night. They found impaired activity in the sleep-deprived brain’s frontal lobe, which governs complex decision-making, but increased activity in deeper brain centers that respond to rewards<\/strong>. Moreover, the participants favored unhealthy snack and junk foods when they were sleep deprived.<\/p>\n “What we have discovered is that high-level brain regions required for complex judgments and decisions become blunted by a lack of sleep<\/strong>, while more primal brain structures that control motivation and desire are amplified,” said Matthew Walker, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology and neuroscience and senior author of the study published Aug. 6 in the journal Nature Communications.<\/p>\n Moreover, he added, “high-calorie foods also became significantly more desirable when participants were sleep-deprived. This combination of altered brain activity and decision-making may help explain why people who sleep less also tend to be overweight or obese<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n Previous studies have linked poor sleep to greater appetites, particularly for sweet and salty foods, but the latest findings provide a specific brain mechanism explaining why food choices change for the worse following a sleepless night, Walker said.<\/p>\n “These results shed light on how the brain becomes impaired by sleep deprivation<\/strong>, leading to the selection of more unhealthy foods and, ultimately, higher rates of obesity,” said Stephanie Greer, a doctoral student in Walker’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory and lead author of the paper. Another co-author of the study is Andrea Goldstein, also a doctoral student in Walker’s lab.<\/p>\n In this newest study, researchers measured brain activity as participants viewed a series of 80 food images that ranged from high-to low-calorie and healthy and unhealthy, and rated their desire for each of the items. As an incentive, they were given the food they most craved after the MRI scan.<\/p>\n Food choices presented in the experiment ranged from fruits and vegetables, such as strawberries, apples and carrots, to high-calorie burgers, pizza and doughnuts<\/strong>. The latter are examples of the more popular choices following a sleepless night.<\/p>\n On a positive note, Walker said, the findings indicate that “getting enough sleep is one factor that can help promote weight control<\/strong> by priming the brain mechanisms governing appropriate food choices.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the University of California – Berkeley media release: A sleepless night makes us more likely to reach for doughnuts or pizza than for whole grains and leafy green vegetables,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[339,336,43],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15164"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15210,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15164\/revisions\/15210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"healthy_food_choices\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/healthy_food_choices.jpg\")
<\/a>A sleepless night makes us more likely to reach for doughnuts or pizza than for whole grains and leafy green vegetables<\/strong>, suggests a new study from UC Berkeley that examines the brain regions that control food choices. The findings shed new light on the link between poor sleep and obesity.<\/p>\n