The Emotional Brain in a Sleepless World
Not getting enough sleep dramatically changes how we feel and think. Even a single night of sleep loss elevates levels of anxiety and depression in healthy adults, and chronic sleep loss can develop into a clinical mental disorder. This is alarming considering that 40 percent of adults in the United States suffer from chronic insufficient sleep. This talk will describe what it is about sleep loss that undermines our mental health and how sleep — when we do get it — helps restore our minds back to a more positive and calm state.
Speaker:
Eti Ben Simon’s work explores the social and emotional consequences of sleep loss on the human brain and body. Using functional MRI and electrical brain recordings, Simon examines the neural processes that underlie emotional dysregulation following lack of sleep and the restoration of these processes after a restful night of sleep. She received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Tel Aviv University and is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Human Sleep Science, directed by Professor Matthew Walker.