How Sleep Deprivation Affects Risk-Taking Behavior and the Brain: A Neuroimaging Study
Date
2013
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Haverford College. Department of Psychology
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine whether sleep deprivation has affect on risk taking behavior and to determine which areas of the brain are affected under conditions of sleep deprivation. Our measure of risk taking behavior was obtained through the Iowa Gambling Task (Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994). Functional magnetic resonance imaging scans were conducted while participants performed the Iowa Gambling Task to assess the neural correlates involved in risk taking and decision making under conditions of sleep deprivation. We investigated whether sleep deprivation vulnerability modulates risk taking behavior. We found no significant changes in risk taking behavior following sleep deprivation, although we did find a general trend of decreased risk taking behavior over the 5-day span of the experimentation. We found a decrease in cerebral blood flow in the thalamus, middle orbital frontal region, medial frontal region, middle frontal gyrus, and inferior parietal lobule following sleep deprivation and an increase in activation in bilateral insula and the supplementary motor area during sleep deprivation. Potential explanations for these results are discussed.