Sep 03, 2023 12:00:00

Brain scan reveals the reason for the mysterious phenomenon that ``staying up all night relieves symptoms of depression''

Many people believe that staying up all night or not getting enough sleep not only reduces cognitive function but also has a negative impact on health, and that it is all harm and no good. However, surprisingly, a treatment called ``

sleep deprivation '' that improves symptoms of depression by staying up all night has been known for a long time, and a new study uses brain scans to reveal why staying up all night improves mood. became.

Enhanced amygdala–cingulate connectivity associates with better mood in both healthy and depressive individuals after sleep deprivation | PNAS
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2214505120

Staying Up All Night May Actually Relieve Depression in Some People : ScienceAlert
https://www.sciencealert.com/staying-up-all-night-may-actually-relieve-depression-in-some-people

Staying up all night and sleep deprivation is a problem that threatens the health of people around the world, but staying up all night may have a temporary antidepressant effect for some people with depression. While treatment with general antidepressants takes more than two weeks to become effective, sleep deprivation therapy is unique in that antidepressant effects can be seen immediately after staying up all night. It is said that it may be used for patients who do not respond well to the treatment.

Therefore, in a study led by the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, 30 subjects suffering from depression and 38 subjects with no history of mental illness stayed up all night and conducted a questionnaire survey, including 16 subjects with no history of mental illness who did not stay up all night. I had a brain scan. The subjects who stayed up all night passed the time until morning by reading, playing computer games, watching TV, etc., and did not consume caffeine or exercise.

As a result of the experiment, many people without depression became moody due to lack of sleep, but it was found that 13 out of 30 patients with depression improved their mood after staying up all night. It has been confirmed that for some patients with depression, staying up all night does indeed improve their symptoms.

When examining the subjects' brains using

functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) , they found that the amygdala , which plays an important role in processing emotional responses and memory, and the anterior cingulate cortex, which is involved in processing emotional responses and cognitive tasks. Connectivity was found to be enhanced in those who reported feeling better after staying up all night. The connectivity between these two regions remained relatively strong even after the participants had had two days to lose the effects of the all-nighter.

Nowadays, it is known that the body's

circadian rhythm regulates various physiological phenomena, and fields such as chronotherapy, which adjusts the timing of medication administration to match the circadian rhythm, are also attracting attention.

Research on such chronotherapy suggests that a strong impact on circadian rhythms may reset the regulatory processes in the body that have gone awry. The reason why the connectivity between the amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex was restored after staying up all night may be due to the reset of the circadian rhythm.

Of course, we know that a lack of sleep can increase the risk of dementia and other health problems later in life, and it can also have a negative impact on social life, so staying up all night is good for people with depression. I can't say. However, mapping the connectivity between brain regions restored by staying up all night may lead to elucidation of the mechanisms that may cause depression.

'At the very least, if we find that it is possible to strengthen connections between brain regions important for mood, we could improve the mood of large numbers of people without depriving our brains of the benefits of restful sleep,' says Science Alert. Maybe we can find a way to improve it.”