If you feel cranky after a long night, it is probably because your brain’s ability to regulate emotions is compromised by fatigue, according to research published in the Journal of Neuroscience. Share on Pinterest Not sleeping can cause emotional dysfunction. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) call insufficient sleep a “public health problem” and estimate that 30% of Americans get less than 6 hours of sleep a night. Lack of sleep is linked to motor vehicle crashes, industrial disasters, and medical and other occupational errors. Diseases linked to sleep insufficiency include hypertension, diabetes, depression, obesity and cancer. Contributing factors include round-the-clock access to technology and work schedules as well as disorders such as insomnia or obstructive sleep apnea. Until now, it has not been clear what causes the emotional impairments triggered by sleep loss.

Neurological mechanism revealed The new research, led by Prof. Talma Hendler of Tel Aviv University (TAU) in Israel, identifies the neurological mechanism responsible for disturbed emotion regulation and increased anxiety due to lack of sleep. It also shows how sleep deprivation can affect our ability to regulate emotions and allocate brain resources for cognitive processing. Researchers kept 18 adults awake all night and had them take two rounds of tests while undergoing brain mapping using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and/or an electroencephalogram (EEG). The first test was taken after a good night’s sleep and the second after spending a night awake in the lab. In the first test, participants had to describe the direction in which small yellow dots moved over distracting images. These images were “positively emotional” (a cat), “negatively emotional” (a mutilated body) or “neutral” (a spoon).