Cited by 296Sleep and Wakefulness ResearchNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesSleep and related disorders

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 56 of the 57 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 51 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

The effects of poor quality sleep on brain function and risk taking in adolescence

Open access

Abstract

Insufficient sleep and poor quality sleep are pervasive during adolescence and relate to impairments in cognitive control and increased risk taking. However, the neurobiology underlying the association between sleep and adolescent behavior remains elusive. In the current study, we examine how poor sleep quality relates to cognitive control and reward related brain function during risk taking. Forty-six adolescents participated in a functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) scan during which they completed a cognitive control and risk taking task. Behaviorally, adolescents who reported poorer sleep also exhibited greater risk-taking. This association was paralleled by less recruitment of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during cognitive control, greater insula activation during reward processing, and reduced functional coupling between the DLPFC and affective regions including the insula and ventral striatum during reward processing. Collectively, these results suggest that poor sleep may exaggerate the normative imbalance between affective and cognitive control systems, leading to greater risk-taking in adolescents.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

In 46 adolescents, poorer subjective sleep quality was associated with greater self-reported and behavioral risk taking, less right DLPFC recruitment during cognitive control, greater left insula activation during reward processing, and reduced DLPFC–affective functional coupling. The authors interpret this as poor sleep exaggerating the normative affective–cognitive control imbalance in adolescence.

Key findings

  • Poorer sleep quality was associated with greater risk-taking likelihood (β=.40, p<.01), greater perceived positive consequences of risk taking (β=.44, p<.005), and more adjusted pumps on the BART (β=.40, p<.01).
  • Poorer sleep quality correlated with decreased right DLPFC activation during No-go>Go trials; this reduced DLPFC response was associated with more BART pumps (β=.58, p<.001), more decision-making complacency (β=−.50, p<.001), and less decision-making vigilance (β=.43, p<.005).
  • Poorer sleep quality was associated with increased left insula activation during cash-out trials as rewards increased; insula activation related to more BART pumps (β=.41, p<.005), greater risk-taking likelihood (β=.37, p<.05), and greater positive consequences for risk taking (β=.32, p<.05).
  • Poor sleep was associated with reduced functional coupling between DLPFC and right insula (Z=3.78, p<.05) and ventral striatum (Z=4.21, p<.05) during cash-outs; reduced DLPFC activation accounted for 53.86% of the effect of poor sleep on insula activation.

Methods

  • Forty-six adolescents aged 14–16 years (Mage=15.23; 19 males, 27 females) completed fMRI during a Go–No-Go cognitive control task and the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART); participants were not taking medications and did not report mood or sleep disorders.
  • Sleep quality was measured with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI; mean=5.3, range=2–16); risk perceptions and decision making were measured with modified CARE and Flinders Adolescent Decision Making Questionnaire.
  • Analyses used FSL whole-brain regression with sleep quality as a regressor, psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analyses for functional coupling, and mediation analyses; thresholding used Z>2.3 and p<.05 familywise error corrected.

Limitations

  • The paper states it cannot delineate the direction of effects: poor sleep may increase risk-related brain function, or adolescents already oriented toward rewards may obtain poorer sleep.
  • The paper states it cannot be certain findings are specific to adolescence or whether similar effects occur at other developmental periods; future experimental and longitudinal work is needed.
  • Evident from the text: the design is cross-sectional and correlational, sleep quality is subjective, and the sample is a modest-sized healthy non-clinical group, so causal and clinical generalizations are limited.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.01.025

Cites

56 of 56 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Verification

Claims the paper makes

0 of 51 cited sources checked · 0 supported · 0 flagged

Show all 66 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 21
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 17
33 of 33
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The neurobiology underlying the association between sleep and adolescent behavior remains elusive.

    “However, the neurobiology underlying the association between sleep and adolescent behavior remains elusive.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The Go–No-Go task targets primarily cognitive control-related brain function.

    “We focused the PPI analyses on the BART task, given that both affective and cognitive control regions are involved during the task (Schonberg et al., 2012), whereas the GNG task targets primarily cognitive control-related brain function.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The sample of 46 adolescents is representative of the broader adolescent population.

    “Participants included forty-six adolescents from a larger sample of adolescents who participated in an fMRI scan during which they completed a risk taking task and a cognitive control task.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The BART task models unpredictable rewards and punishments that characterize real-world risky behaviors.

    “This pattern models the unpredictable rewards and punishments that characterize real-world risky behaviors.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The mediation analysis assumes no unmeasured confounding and correct temporal ordering of sleep quality, DLPFC activation, and insula activation.

    “Mediation analyses were conducted in SPSS by regressing sleep quality on percent BOLD signal change in the insula to cash outs, and entering percent BOLD signal change in the DLPFC during No-go>Go trials as the mediator.”
5 of 5

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Statistics recomputed

Every reported test result, recomputed from its test statistic and degrees of freedom. A result shows as not adding up only once an independent check has confirmed it.

  • Consistentt(45) = 7.67reported p < .001 · recomputed p < .001

    “t(45)=7.67, p < .001”

  • Consistentt(45) = 3.96reported p < .001 · recomputed p < .001

    “t(45)=3.96, p < .001”

  • Consistentz = 3.78reported p < .05 · recomputed p < .001

    “Z=3.78, p < .05”

  • Consistentz = 4.21reported p < .05 · recomputed p < .001

    “Z=4.21, p < .05”

  • Consistentz = 2.89reported p < .05 · recomputed p = .004

    “Z=2.89, p < .05”

5 of 5

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

  • Explosion point assigned two different distributions

    Major

    The number of pumps before explosion and the explosion point describe the same threshold, but one is said to follow a Poisson distribution and the other a uniform distribution.

  • PPI physiological regressor does not match the stated seed

    Minor

    The PPI description defines the seed as a DLPFC region and identifies its time course as a design-matrix regressor, but then says the physiological regressor is the time series of the ventral striatum or insula.

2 of 2

Citations

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Show all 57 references

1 of the 57 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 101–200 of 294

Metadata

Authors
Telzer, E. H., Fuligni, A. J., Lieberman, M. D., & Galván, A.
Affiliations
  • University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
  • University of California, Los Angeles (US)
Corresponding author
Telzer, Eva H.
Venue
NeuroImage
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2013-05
Volume
71
Pages
275-283
ISSN
1053-8119 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2139046563
Cited by
296
References
57
Citations by year
2026: 17 · 2025: 30 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 23 · 2019: 31 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 21 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 6
FWCI
11.29
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • NeuroImage (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • NICHD (R01HD057164-S, R01HD057164)
  • UCLA Center for Culture, Brain and Development Research Grant
  • NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant
  • SRCD Dissertation Fund Award
  • APF and COGDOP Graduate Research Grant
  • University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States Dissertation Research Grant
  • National Research Service Award Graduate Fellowship
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and related disorders
Keywords
sleep quality, insufficient sleep, adolescence, risk-taking, cognitive control, reward processing, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, insula, ventral striatum, functional connectivity
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Brain, Brain Mapping, Decision Making, Female, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Reward, Risk-Taking, Sleep

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

A language model drew the claims from the paper on 2026-10-10, under version 3 of the claim definition (model deepseek-v4.1-flash, prompt extract-v3).

A second model labelled each claim on 2026-10-10 (model jev-1.13-20260917, definition revision gold-guideline-v0.2).

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review