WASHINGTON (Dispatches)-The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex may have to work harder to modify negative emotional responses in people with poor sleep who have depression or anxiety, new research suggests.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, led by Heide Klumpp, assistant professor of psychiatry at UIC, used functional MRI to measure the activity in different regions of the brain as subjects were challenged with an emotion-regulation task. Participants were shown disturbing images of violence -- from war or accidents -- and were asked to simply look at the images and not to try to control their reaction or to "reappraise" what they saw in a more positive light.
An example of reappraisal would be to see an image of a woman with a badly bruised face and imagine her as an actress in makeup for a role, rather than as a survivor of violence, Klumpp said.
"Reappraisal is something that requires significant mental energy," she said. "In people with depression or anxiety, reappraisal can be even more difficult, because these disorders are characterized by chronic negativity or negative rumination, which makes seeing the good in things difficult."
"Our research indicates sleep might play an important role in the ability to regulate negative emotions in people who suffer from anxiety or depression," Klumpp said.