睡眠不足的你会将朋友错认为敌人

  如果你不能区分微笑还是皱眉，那么你很有可能睡眠不足；近日来自加州大学伯克利分校的科学家表示，睡眠不足或可使得我们正确识别人脸面部表情的能力变得迟钝，而这种迟钝会带来严重后果，比如并不能发现小孩儿生病了还是单纯的疼痛，相关研究发表于国际杂志Journal of Neuroscience上。
  研究者Matthew Walker说道，识别某人的表情不光会改变你是否决定与其接触的方式，同时还会改变对方与你接触的方式，本文研究不禁让人必须深入思考，因为在发达国家里三分之二的个体每天都得不到充足的睡眠；的确研究结果并不能预示睡眠不足的个体会有上述的表现，那么试想一下通宵达旦学习的学生、急诊室的医护工作人员、军事区域的工作人员以及值夜班的警务人员，有没有人考虑过不充足的睡眠会给他们带来什么样的结果呢？
  在实验中，研究者让18名健康的成年人观看了从友好过渡到有威胁的70幅人的面部表情，随后研究者扫描了参与个体的大脑成像图谱，同时在他们观看人面部表情时测定了他们的心率，大脑扫描的结果显示，缺乏睡眠的大脑并不能够有效区分出具有威胁性和友好的面孔，尤其是大脑的前岛和扣带回皮质中感知情感的区域表现尤为明显。
  另外，对参与者的心率测定结果表明，缺乏睡眠的个体并不能够对有威胁性和友好的面部表情作出正常地反应；研究者发现，大脑和心脏之间神经连接的“断线”才会使得机体感知危险信号。而睡眠不足似乎会使得机体脱离大脑来运作。研究者Walker说道，睡眠不足会删除个体大脑中的玫瑰情感世界，引发机体对错误的过高评价，这或许可以帮助解释为何有些睡眠缺乏的个体经常会在社交上失败，而且总是很孤单。
  随后研究者对整晚睡眠的参与者的大脑电生理活性进行了记录，结果发现，参与者快速眼动的质量和其正确区分面部表情的正确能力直接存在相关性，此前研究中研究者也发现，快速眼动可以帮助减少机体压力的化学物质的释放同时还会减缓疼痛的记忆。最后研究者说道，个体晚上睡眠的质量越高，其大脑和机体有效区分多种面部表情的能力就越准确，而夜晚睡眠似乎会重置机体情感的磁北极，这或许对于阐明夜晚睡眠充足性的重要性提供证据。（转化医学网360zhyx.com）
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转化医学网推荐的原文摘要：

Sleep Deprivation Impairs the Human Central and Peripheral Nervous System Discrimination of Social Threat
Journal of Neuroscience     http://www.jneurosci.org/content/35/28/10135.short
Andrea N. Goldstein-Piekarski1,2, Stephanie M. Greer1, Jared M. Saletin2, and Matthew P. Walker1,2
Facial expressions represent one of the most salient cues in our environment. They communicate the affective state and intent of an individual and, if interpreted correctly, adaptively influence the behavior of others in return. Processing of such affective stimuli is known to require reciprocal signaling between central viscerosensory brain regions and peripheral-autonomic body systems, culminating in accurate emotion discrimination. Despite emerging links between sleep and affective regulation, the impact of sleep loss on the discrimination of complex social emotions within and between the CNS and PNS remains unknown. Here, we demonstrate in humans that sleep deprivation impairs both viscerosensory brain (anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala) and autonomic-cardiac discrimination of threatening from affiliative facial cues. Moreover, sleep deprivation significantly degrades the normally reciprocal associations between these central and peripheral emotion-signaling systems, most prominent at the level of cardiac-amygdala coupling. In addition, REM sleep physiology across the sleep-rested night significantly predicts the next-day success of emotional discrimination within this viscerosensory network across individuals, suggesting a role for REM sleep in affective brain recalibration. Together, these findings establish that sleep deprivation compromises the faithful signaling of, and the “embodied” reciprocity between, viscerosensory brain and peripheral autonomic body processing of complex social signals. Such impairments hold ecological relevance in professional contexts in which the need for accurate interpretation of social cues is paramount yet insufficient sleep is pervasive.