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"Night birds" – people who stay naturally late at night and get up well after sunrise – have different patterns of brain activity than "larks of the morning," a new study reveals. And these differences can make life more difficult for night birds, if they are forced to follow a standard schedule from 9am to 5pm.
When researchers badyzed the brains of people clbadified as night-birds or larks in the morning, they found that night-birds had a lower "brain connectivity" – a measure of the "synchronization" of different regions of the world. brain with each other – compared to the morning. larks.
In addition, this decrease in cerebral connectivity in night birds was badociated with lower attention, slower reaction times, and increased sleepiness throughout the workday, the researchers said.
The results suggest a possible reason why night owls could have problems with attention and drowsiness when they would try to comply with a typical schedule from 9 am to 5 pm – something that does not fit their internal clock, the researchers said. [5 Surprising Sleep Discoveries]
"This mismatch between the biological time and social time of a person – what most of us have experienced in the form of jet lag – is a common problem for night owls who try to follow a day. of normal work, "published Elise Facer-Childs, lead author of the study. The Monash Institute for Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience in Melbourne, Australia, said in a statement.
"Our study is the first to show a potential intrinsic neural mechanism behind the reason that" night owls "can be cognitively disadvantaged when they are forced to adapt to these constraints," Facer said. -Childs, who led the work while he was a researcher at the University of Birmingham. Center for the Health of the Human Brain in the United Kingdom.
The study is published Feb. 14 in the journal Sleep.
A brain of "night owl"
More and more research suggests that being a night owl could have negative health effects, including increasing the risk of premature death. Many of these effects can be attributed to a shift in a person's internal clock or circadian rhythm and at the time imposed by society for work and other activities. But few studies have examined whether there was a link between circadian rhythm and cerebral connectivity.
The new study badyzed the information provided by 38 healthy volunteers who completed a sleep questionnaire to determine their "chronotype", that is, a night owl or a morning lark. Participants also carried out activity monitoring and tests to measure their levels of certain hormones to confirm their chronotype.
Then the participants had the brain swept away while they were in a "state of rest", which meant that they were not doing any particular task and could let their minds wander. Cerebral connectivity to the resting state (sometimes called the "default network" of the brain) would be implicated in a number of brain functions, including the maintenance of consciousness and self-reflection, as well as the presence of the brain. attention and memory, the researchers said.
Finally, the participants performed several tasks to measure their attention and reaction time at different times of the day, from 8 am to 8 pm. Participants were also asked to rate their sleep status at these times.
As expected, early morning larks were more successful in early morning testing and performed much better than night owls at that time. On the other hand, night owls were more successful in the evening tests, but their performances were comparable to those of the larks of the morning during evening tests. Researchers have indicated that these findings highlight the particular disadvantage of night owls in the morning.
Brain scans show that when they are at rest (without performing specific tasks), morning larks have higher brain connectivity than night owls, which predicts better performance and better reaction times. during tasks, as well as a reduction in drowsiness. In contrast, the lower brain connectivity observed in night birds predicted lower performance, slower reaction times, and increased sleepiness.
The researchers found that they found only an badociation between reduced cerebral connectivity in night birds and poorer performance, and that they could not prove that this cerebral connectivity reduced the performance of these tasks.
Researchers have asked for more studies to further explore how the chronotype can affect brain connectivity.
The results also suggest that society in general should be more aware of the impact of a person's internal clock on his productivity and health.
"A typical day could last from 9 am to 5 pm, but for a night owl, it could result in decreased performance in the morning, lower brain connectivity … and increased daytime sleepiness," Facer-Childs said. . "If, as a society, we could be more flexible in managing our time, we could do a lot to maximize productivity and minimize health risks."
Originally published on Science live.
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