Sleep Debt Elicits Negative Emotional Reaction through Diminished Amygdala-Anterior Cingulate Functional Connectivity
Figure 1
The study was conducted in a randomized crossover design, involving a sleep control (SC) and sleep debt (SD) session (for 5 days in each session) with a 2-week interval between the sessions. In the observational session before the experiment, participants visited the laboratory for a briefing session and gave their informed consent. One week later, participants came to the lab for PSG screening. One week after the PSG screening, the experimental sessions were started, with the order of the sessions counter-balanced across participants (i.e., SC-SD or SD-SC). Participants stayed at home on days 1–3 within each SC and SD session, according to the restrictive sleep-wake schedule that had been already instructed in the briefing (i.e., sleep time of 8 h for SC and 4 h for SD). Participants came to the lab on night 3 of the SC and SC sessions and spent the rest of the sessions (i.e., 2 days per session) in the sleep-lab with their sleep time controlled as instructed. On nights 3 and 4 in each session, participants underwent PSG measurement in the lab. On day 5, they completed questionnaires to check their mood state and sleepiness followed by fMRI scanning with an emotional task. SC, sleep control; SD, sleep debt; PSG, polysomnography; SSS, Stanford Sleepiness Scale; STAI, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory; POMS, Profile of Mood States.