Department of Social Neuroscience and Social Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Bern, Bern 3012, Switzerland.
Department of Neurology, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich 8091, Switzerland.
J Neurosci. 2024 Apr 10;44(15):e0885232024. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0885-23.2024.
Prosocial behavior is crucial for the smooth functioning of the society. Yet, individuals differ vastly in the propensity to behave prosocially. Here, we try to explain these individual differences under normal sleep conditions without any experimental modulation of sleep. Using a portable high-density EEG, we measured the sleep data in 54 healthy adults (28 females) during a normal night's sleep at the participants' homes. To capture prosocial preferences, participants played an incentivized public goods game in which they faced real monetary consequences. The whole-brain analyses showed that a higher relative slow-wave activity (SWA, an indicator of sleep depth) in a cluster of electrodes over the right temporoparietal junction (TPJ) was associated with increased prosocial preferences. Source localization and current source density analyses further support these findings. Recent sleep deprivation studies imply that sleeping enough makes us more prosocial; the present findings suggest that it is not only sleep duration, but particularly sufficient sleep depth in the TPJ that is positively related to prosociality. Because the TPJ plays a central role in social cognitive functions, we speculate that sleep depth in the TPJ, as reflected by relative SWA, might serve as a dispositional indicator of social cognition ability, which is reflected in prosocial preferences. These findings contribute to the emerging framework explaining the link between sleep and prosocial behavior by shedding light on the underlying mechanisms.
亲社会行为对于社会的顺利运转至关重要。然而，个体在亲社会行为倾向方面存在很大差异。在这里，我们试图在正常睡眠条件下，不进行任何睡眠实验调节的情况下，解释这些个体差异。我们使用便携式高密度 EEG，在参与者家中的正常夜间睡眠期间测量了 54 名健康成年人（28 名女性）的睡眠数据。为了捕捉亲社会偏好，参与者玩了一个有激励的公共物品游戏，他们在游戏中面临真实的金钱后果。全脑分析表明，电极集群上右颞顶交界处（TPJ）的相对慢波活动（SWA，睡眠深度的指标）升高与亲社会偏好增加有关。源定位和电流源密度分析进一步支持了这些发现。最近的睡眠剥夺研究表明，充足的睡眠使我们更具亲社会性；本研究结果表明，与亲社会性相关的不仅是睡眠时间，而是 TPJ 中特别充足的睡眠深度。由于 TPJ 在社会认知功能中起着核心作用，我们推测，TPJ 中的睡眠深度（由相对 SWA 反映）可能是社会认知能力的一种特质指标，这反映在亲社会偏好中。这些发现通过揭示潜在机制，为解释睡眠与亲社会行为之间联系的新兴框架做出了贡献。
