Cited by 177Sleep and Wakefulness ResearchSleep and related disordersSleep and Work-Related Fatigue

Overanxious and underslept

Ben Simon, Eti, Rossi, Aubrey, Harvey, Allison G., Walker, Matthew P.·2019·Nature Human Behaviour

Abstract

Are you feeling anxious? Did you sleep poorly last night? Sleep disruption is a recognized feature of all anxiety disorders. Here, we investigate the basic brain mechanisms underlying the anxiogenic impact of sleep loss. Additionally, we explore whether subtle, societally common reductions in sleep trigger elevated next-day anxiety. Finally, we examine what it is about sleep, physiologically, that provides such an overnight anxiety-reduction benefit. We demonstrate that the anxiogenic impact of sleep loss is linked to impaired medial prefrontal cortex activity and associated connectivity with extended limbic regions. In contrast, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) slow-wave oscillations offer an ameliorating, anxiolytic benefit on these brain networks following sleep. Of societal relevance, we establish that even modest night-to-night reductions in sleep across the population predict consequential day-to-day increases in anxiety. These findings help contribute to an emerging framework explaining the intimate link between sleep and anxiety and further highlight the prospect of non-rapid eye movement sleep as a therapeutic target for meaningfully reducing anxiety.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/s41562-019-0754-8

Cites

94 of 94 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

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?

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

2 of the 96 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Ben Simon, E., Rossi, A., Harvey, A. G., & Walker, M. P.
Affiliations
University of California, Berkeley (US)
Corresponding author
Walker, Matthew P.
Venue
Nature Human Behaviour
Published
2019-11-04
Volume
4
Issue
1
Pages
100-110
ISSN
2397-3374 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2987569059
Cited by
177
References
96
Citations by year
2026: 24 · 2025: 32 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 33 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 2
FWCI
10.47
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Nature Human Behaviour (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute on Aging (RF1AG054019, R01AG015019, R01AG031164)
  • National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH093537)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and related disorders
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and Work-Related Fatigue
Keywords
sleep deprivation, anxiety, medial prefrontal cortex, limbic system
MeSH terms
Adult, Amygdala, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders, Electroencephalography, Female, Humans, Limbic System, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Nerve Net, Sleep Deprivation, Sleep Stages, Prefrontal Cortex, Young Adult, Functional Neuroimaging

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.

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