Lack of quality sleep can trigger aggressive behavior, according to recent longitudinal findings published in the journal biopsychologyBrain imaging data revealed that this effect may be associated with decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex and increased activity in the limbic area.
Good sleep is paramount for healthy functioning of our brain and body. Studies show that a lack of quality sleep interferes with your ability to regulate your thoughts and emotions, which can affect your behavior. I have.
Although multiple studies have shown a link between sleep deprivation and aggressive behavior, the direction of this relationship remains unclear. cause aggressive behavior? Study authors Haobo Zhang and Xu Lei conducted a longitudinal study to answer this question. They also investigated potential brain mechanisms involved in the relationship between sleep and aggression through neuroimaging data.
“Since sleep plays a vital role in an individual’s physical and mental health, we uncover causal links and mechanisms between sleep quality and aggressive behavior in order to raise public awareness of the importance of sleep.” I thought about doing it,” Professor Ray said. Director of the Center for Sleep and Neuroimaging, Southwest University, China.
Zhang and Lei obtained data from the Behavioral Brain Research Project (BBP), an ongoing study of undergraduate students in Chongqing, China. They looked at data collected from his two time points, two years apart. In the current analysis, the sample consists of approximately 450 students from her 16 years old to her 26 years old.
At both time points, participants completed a subjective sleep quality assessment over the past month and measures of aggression, including subdimensions of hostility, physical aggression, impulsivity, and anger. Students also underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity.
To examine the relationship between students’ subjective sleep quality and aggression over time, researchers used a statistical technique called cross-lag panel analysis. This analysis revealed that sleep quality at Hour 1 had a significant impact on aggression at Hour 2. In contrast, aggression did not significantly affect sleep quality.
“Some researchers have suggested that high levels of aggressive behavior may also contribute to sleep deprivation, but our findings do not support such a view,” says Ray. told PsyPost. “This seems to suggest that the physiological effects of aggressive behavior are transitory and should be examined in future studies.”
Importantly, these findings provide preliminary evidence for a causal relationship, with sleep deprivation causing increased aggression. We tested the association with each of the four subdimensions of . This revealed that poor sleep quality was only an important predictor of increased hostility.
“Sleep is so important to humans, and sleep deprivation can increase personal animosity, impair interpersonal relationships, and negatively impact interpersonal relationships,” Ray told PsyPost. It’s important to make a conscious effort to get quality sleep at night.”
The researchers also compared the students’ sleep and aggression scores to spontaneous brain activity measured by resting-state fMRI activity. These results revealed that poor sleep quality and increased aggression were associated with decreased activity in specific brain regions: the limbic or frontal regions.
This may suggest that poor sleep quality led to impaired emotion recognition, the ability to correctly interpret the emotions of others, the authors say. They found that the lower the quality of sleep and the higher the aggression, the stronger the activity in the left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, brain regions involved in the regulation of emotions.
Several explanations have been proposed as to why sleep deprivation increases aggression. Because worse sleep only predicted increased hostility and not other aspects of aggression, the authors say their findings fit best with the cognitive pathways of the general aggression model. Interpretation suggests that sleep deprivation makes people more likely to interpret the behavior of others negatively. be encouraged.
A notable limitation was that the study used self-reported measures of both sleep quality and aggression. The findings further suggest that sleep deprivation may promote aggression by affecting emotional cognition.
The study “Effect of Subjective Sleep Quality on Aggression: A Two-Year Longitudinal and fMRI Pilot Study” was authored by Haobo Zhang and Xu Lei.
