Neurologists told how the brain changes if you do not sleep after midnight

Miscellaneous / by admin / August 03, 2022

click fraud protection

In short, we see everything in a more negative color and we can accidentally break firewood. Scientists urge to pay close attention to this important topic.

When people are awake during the biological circadian night—after midnight for most people— neurophysiological changes occur in the brain that affect how we interact with the world. They are especially strongly associated with reward systems, decision-making and information processing. A scientific article about it was publishedThe Mind After Midnight: Nocturnal Wakefulness, Behavioral Dysregulation, and Psychopathology in Frontiers in Network Physiology.

neurologists notethat these changes may make you more prone to a negative perception of the world, bad habits and making impulsive decisions, including those related to addictions, without fully understanding the consequences.

The basic idea is that from a global evolutionary point of view, your internal the biological circadian clock is set to processes that promote sleep rather than wakefulness after midnight.

instagram viewer

Elizabeth b. Clerman

MD, Investigator, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, and Senior Author

Clerman describes his work as a call to scientists to do new global research in order to better understand how these circadian differences affect behavior, decision making, and night work performance time.

Photo: Mikhail Nilov / Pexels

The findings could have a variety of implications for people who need to stay awake at night to work, including pilots, medical professionals, police and military personnel. Research can also lead to the development of new strategies to reduce violent crime, substance use disorders, suicide and other harmful behavior.

Millions of people stay awake in the middle of the night, and there is pretty strong evidence that their brains don't work as well as they do during the day. I am calling for more research to look into this because it affects their health and safety as well as the health of others.

Elizabeth b. Clerman

Clerman added that the circadian influence on our brain's neural activity changes over the course of 24 hours, leading to differences in how we perceive and respond to the world around us.

For example, the tendency to view information in a positive light reaches its highest point in the morning, while at night people tend to see everything in a negative light.

In addition, our body naturally produces more dopamine at night, which can alter the reward and motivation system and increase the likelihood of risky behavior. The consequences of this can be completely unpredictable - you can accidentally get drunk, put the wrong diagnosing a patient, smashing an oil tanker on rocks, or doing something worse, depending on the kind of activities.

The importance of a deep study of this issue is difficult to overestimate, the scientists added. This has already been discussed in a number of previous researchNocturnal Wakefulness as a Previously Unrecognized Risk Factor for Suicide.