Imaging Research Center, Department of Radiology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, and University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
Department of Physics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
Sleep. 2024 Apr 12;47(4). doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsad036.
Poor sleep in adolescents can increase the risk of obesity, possibly due to changes in dietary patterns. Prior neuroimaging evidence, mostly in adults, suggests that lacking sleep results in increased response to food cues in reward-processing brain regions. Needed is a clarification of the mechanisms by which food reward processing is altered by the kind of chronic sleep restriction (SR) typically experienced by adolescents. This study aimed to elucidate the impact of sleep duration on response to visual food stimuli in healthy adolescents using functional neuroimaging, hypothesizing increased reward processing response after SR compared to a well-rested condition.
Thirty-nine healthy adolescents, 14-17 years old, completed a 3-week protocol: (1) sleep phase stabilization; (2) SR (6.5 h nightly); and (3) healthy sleep (HS) duration (9 h nightly). Participants underwent functional MRI while performing a visual food paradigm. Contrasts of food versus nonfood responses were compared within-subject between conditions of SR and HS.
Under SR, there was a greater response to food stimuli compared to HS in a voxel cluster including the left ventral tegmental area and substantia nigra. No change in food appeal rating due to the sleep manipulation was detected.
Outcomes of this study suggest that SR, as commonly experienced by healthy adolescents, results in the elevated dopaminergic drive of the reward network that may augment motivation to seek food in the context of individual food appeal and inhibitory profiles. Countermeasures that reduce food salience could include promoting consistent HS habits.
青少年睡眠质量差可能会增加肥胖的风险，这可能是由于饮食模式的改变。先前的神经影像学证据主要在成年人中表明，缺乏睡眠会导致奖励处理大脑区域对食物线索的反应增加。需要阐明的是，青少年通常经历的那种慢性睡眠限制（SR）是如何改变食物奖励处理的机制。本研究旨在使用功能神经影像学阐明睡眠持续时间对健康青少年对视觉食物刺激的反应的影响，假设与休息良好的状态相比，SR 后奖励处理反应会增加。
39 名 14-17 岁的健康青少年完成了一个为期 3 周的方案：（1）睡眠阶段稳定；（2）SR（每晚约 6.5 小时）；（3）健康睡眠（HS）时间（每晚约 9 小时）。参与者在执行视觉食物范式时进行了功能 MRI。在 SR 和 HS 条件下，对食物与非食物反应进行了对照。
在 SR 下，与 HS 相比，在包括左侧腹侧被盖区和黑质在内的体素簇中，对食物刺激的反应更大。由于睡眠干预，食物吸引力评分没有变化。
本研究的结果表明，健康青少年通常经历的 SR 导致奖励网络的多巴胺能驱动升高，这可能会增加在个体食物吸引力和抑制特征的背景下对食物的动机。减少食物显著性的对策可能包括促进一致的 HS 习惯。
