睡眠不足可引發(fā)焦慮癥

A sleepless night can leave the brain spinning with anxiety the next day.

一個不眠之夜會讓你的大腦在第二天焦躁不安。

In healthy adults, overnight sleep deprivation triggered anxiety the next morning, along with altered brain activity patterns, scientists reported November 4 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

科學家在11月4日的神經(jīng)科學學會年會上報告說，對于健康的成年人，24小時的睡眠剝奪會在第二天早晨引發(fā)焦慮以及大腦活動模式的改變。

People with anxiety disorders often have trouble sleeping. The new results uncover the reverse effect — that poor sleep can induce anxiety. The study shows that “this is a two-way interaction,” says Clifford Saper, a sleep researcher at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston who wasn’t involved in the study. “The sleep loss makes the anxiety worse, which in turn makes it harder to sleep.”

焦慮癥患者常常難以入睡。新的發(fā)現(xiàn)指出反過來也是一樣——睡眠不佳會導致焦慮。該研究表明，“這是一種雙向互動，”哈佛醫(yī)學院睡眠研究員、波士頓貝斯以色列女執(zhí)事醫(yī)療中心的Clifford Saper向我們解釋說，“睡眠不足會使焦慮變得更加嚴重，從而使睡眠變得更加困難。”他并沒有參與這項研究。

Sleep researchers Eti Ben Simon and Matthew Walker, both of the University of California, Berkeley, studied the anxiety levels of 18 healthy people. Following either a night of sleep or a night of staying awake, these people took anxiety tests the next morning. After sleep deprivation, anxiety levels in these healthy people were 30 percent higher than when they had slept. On average, the anxiety scores reached levels seen in people with anxiety disorders, Ben Simon said November 5 in a news briefing.

睡眠問題研究員、加州大學伯克利分校的Eti Ben Simon和Matthew Walker分析了18名健康的實驗志愿者的焦慮水平。無論是沉入夢鄉(xiāng)還是一夜未眠，都會在第二天早上對他們進行焦慮測試。剝奪睡眠后，這些健康人的焦慮水平比正常睡眠時高30%。Ben Simon在11月5日的新聞發(fā)布會上說，平均而言，他們的焦慮表現(xiàn)評分達到了焦慮癥患者的水平。

What’s more, sleep-deprived people’s brain activity changed. In response to emotional videos, brain areas involved in emotions were more active, and the prefrontal cortex, an area that can put the brakes on anxiety, was less active, functional MRI scans showed.

更重要的是，睡眠不足的人的大腦活動模式也發(fā)生了變化。在對情緒視頻的響應中，功能性MRI掃描顯示，涉及情緒的大腦區(qū)域更加活躍，前額葉皮層——一處可以遏制焦慮的區(qū)域——則不太活躍。

The results suggest that poor sleep “is more than just a symptom” of anxiety, but in some cases, may be a cause, Ben Simon said.

結(jié)果表明，睡眠不佳“不僅僅是焦慮的癥狀”，在某些情況下，可能也是誘發(fā)焦慮的原因，Ben Simon總結(jié)說。