The DOI matches its Crossref record; 94 of the 96 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Overanxious and underslept
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.
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In the citing paper
“Additionally, the c-ICNs have also been associated with autonomic nervous system (ANS) modulation [45–50] possibly helping to explain the ANS dysfunction consistently reported across psychopathologies [51, 52].”
In the citing paper
“Ben Simon and colleagues report that the interaction between sleep deprivation and the magnitude of anxiety increase is accounted for by changes in medial-prefrontal cortex activity and associated medial-prefrontal cortex connectivity. 51”
From Towards an Integrative Account of Potential Mechanisms Mediating the Path From Sleep Dysfunction to Hallucinations (2025) · cites this paper as [51]
Citations
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Sleep disturbance and psychiatric disorders
Freeman, D., Sheaves, B., Waite, F., Harvey, A. G., & Harrison, P. J. (2020) · The Lancet Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/s2215-0366(20)30136-x · Cited by 843
Self-citationSleep and anxiety: From mechanisms to interventions
Chellappa, S. L., & Aeschbach, D. (2022) · Sleep Medicine Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.smrv.2021.101583 · Cited by 509
Sleep Loss and the Socio-Emotional Brain
Simon, E. B., Vallat, R., Barnes, C. M., & Walker, M. P. (2020) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2020.02.003 · Cited by 261
Self-citationPalmer, C. A., Bower, J. L., Cho, K. W., Clementi, M. A., Lau, S., Oosterhoff, B. J., & Alfano, C. A. (2023) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/bul0000410 · Cited by 251
Gao, C., & Scullin, M. K. (2020) · Sleep Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.sleep.2020.06.032 · Cited by 147
“When people are sleep deprived, they show greater anxiety/stress reactivity [11], greater tendencies to blame and punish others for mistakes [12], poorer job performance [13], and lower cognitive functioning [14].”
Background
Metadata
- 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
- Update notices
- correction (2020-11-30)
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- 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
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