Sleep Deprivation Biases the Neural Mechanisms Underlying Economic Preferences

A single night of sleep deprivation (SD) evoked a strategy shift during risky decision making such that healthy human volunteers moved from defending against losses to seeking increased gains. This change in economic preferences was correlated with the magnitude of an SD-driven increase in ventromedial prefrontal activation as well as by an SD-driven decrease in anterior insula activation during decision making. Analogous changes were observed during receipt of reward outcomes: elevated activation to gains in ventromedial prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum, but attenuated anterior insula activation following losses. Finally, the observed shift in economic preferences was not correlated with change in psychomotor vigilance. These results suggest that a night of total sleep deprivation affects the neural mechanisms underlying economic preferences independent of its effects on vigilant attention.

• Publication year

  2011

• Venue

  Journal of Neuroscience

• Publication date

  2011-03-09

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4407-10.2011PMID 21389226PMCID PMC6622793
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Decision Making, Affect, and Learning: Attention and Performance XXIII

  2011cited by this paper
• Neuroeconomics of risky decisions: from variables to strategies

  2011cited by this paper
• Lapsing when sleep deprived: Neural activation characteristics of resistant and vulnerable individuals

  2010cited by this paper
• Perceived Insufficient Rest or Sleep Among Adults – United States, 2008

  2010cited by this paper
• Impairment of attentional networks after 1 night of sleep deprivation.

  2009cited by this paper
• Separate neural mechanisms underlie choices and strategic preferences in risky decision making.

  2009influential reference
• Hyperstimulation of striatal D2 receptors with sleep deprivation: Implications for cognitive impairment

  2009cited by this paper
• Sleep Promotes the Neural Reorganization of Remote Emotional Memory

  2009cited by this paper
• Perceived insufficient rest or sleep among adults - United States, 2008.

  2009cited by this paper
• Title: the Neural Representation of Subjective Value under Risk and Ambiguity 1 2

  2009cited by this paper
• Report Dopamine Enhances Expectation of Pleasure in Humans

  2009cited by this paper
• Neural activity predicts attitude change in cognitive dissonance

  2009cited by this paper
• How do you feel — now? The anterior insula and human awareness

  2009cited by this paper
• Risky business: the neuroeconomics of decision making under uncertainty

  2008cited by this paper
• Sleep Deprivation Decreases Binding of [11C]Raclopride to Dopamine D2/D3 Receptors in the Human Brain

  2008cited by this paper
• Restoration of risk-propensity during sleep deprivation: caffeine, dextroamphetamine, and modafinil.

  2008cited by this paper
• Lapsing during Sleep Deprivation Is Associated with Distributed Changes in Brain Activation

  2008cited by this paper
• The Effects of Modafinil, Caffeine, and Dextroamphetamine on Judgments of Simple Versus Complex Emotional Expressions Following Sleep Deprivation

  2008cited by this paper
• Functional neuroimaging insights into how sleep and sleep deprivation affect memory and cognition

  2008cited by this paper
• Human Insula Activation Reflects Risk Prediction Errors As Well As Risk

  2008cited by this paper
• A framework for studying the neurobiology of value-based decision making

  2008cited by this paper
• Sleep deprivation elevates expectation of gains and attenuates response to losses following risky decisions.

  2007influential reference
• Functional Dissociation in Frontal and Striatal Areas for Processing of Positive and Negative Reward Information

  2007cited by this paper
• Differential Encoding of Losses and Gains in the Human Striatum

  2007cited by this paper
• The Neural Basis of Loss Aversion in Decision-Making Under Risk

  2007cited by this paper
• The effects of one night of sleep deprivation on known‐risk and ambiguous‐risk decisions

  2007influential reference
• Reproducibility of changes in behaviour and fMRI activation associated with sleep deprivation in a working memory task.

  2007cited by this paper
• Functional neuroimaging and behavioral correlates of capacity decline in visual short-term memory after sleep deprivation

  2007cited by this paper
• Caffeine effects on risky decision making after 75 hours of sleep deprivation.

  2007cited by this paper
• Random number generation during sleep deprivation: effects of caffeine on response maintenance and stereotypy

  2006cited by this paper
• Neural signatures of economic preferences for risk and ambiguity.

  2006cited by this paper
• Reward Value Coding Distinct From Risk Attitude-Related Uncertainty Coding in Human Reward Systems

  2006cited by this paper
• Impaired decision making following 49 h of sleep deprivation

  2006cited by this paper
• Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation

  2006cited by this paper
• Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation: An Unmet Public Health Problem

  2006cited by this paper
• Three New Tests of Independence That Differentiate Models of Risky Decision Making

  2005cited by this paper
• Decreased brain activation during a working memory task at rested baseline is associated with vulnerability to sleep deprivation.

  2005cited by this paper
• It is Whether You Win or Lose: The Importance of the Overall Probabilities of Winning or Losing in Risky Choice

  2005influential reference
• Compensatory recruitment after sleep deprivation and the relationship with performance.

  2005cited by this paper
• Performance and alertness effects of caffeine, dextroamphetamine, and modafinil during sleep deprivation

  2005cited by this paper
• The neural basis of financial risk taking.

  2005influential reference
• Circadian and wake-dependent modulation of fastest and slowest reaction times during the psychomotor vigilance task.

  2004cited by this paper
• Functional Imaging of Working Memory after 24 Hr of Total Sleep Deprivation

  2004cited by this paper
• An event-related fMRI study of the neurobehavioral impact of sleep deprivation on performance of a delayed-match-to-sample task.

  2004cited by this paper
• Systematic interindividual differences in neurobehavioral impairment from sleep loss: evidence of trait-like differential vulnerability.

  2004cited by this paper
• Advances in functional and structural MR image analysis and implementation as FSL.

  2004cited by this paper
• The emotional brain

  2004cited by this paper
• Identification and differential vulnerability of a neural network in sleep deprivation.

  2004cited by this paper
• Increased activation in the right insula during risk-taking decision making is related to harm avoidance and neuroticism

  2003influential reference
• A region of mesial prefrontal cortex tracks monetarily rewarding outcomes: characterization with rapid event-related fMRI

  2003cited by this paper
• Available online at www.sciencedirect.com R

  2002cited by this paper
• Functional imaging of neural responses to expectancy and experience of monetary gains and losses.

  2001cited by this paper
• Sustained attention performance during sleep deprivation: evidence of state instability.

  2001influential reference
• The impact of sleep deprivation on decision making: a review.

  2000cited by this paper
• Emotion, decision making and the orbitofrontal cortex.

  2000influential reference
• Auditory attention and multiattribute decision-making during a 33 h sleep-deprivation period: mean performance and between-subject dispersions.

  1999cited by this paper
• One night of sleep loss impairs innovative thinking and flexible decision making.

  1999cited by this paper
• Cumulative sleepiness, mood disturbance, and psychomotor vigilance performance decrements during a week of sleep restricted to 4-5 hours per night.

  1997cited by this paper
• Emotion-related learning in patients with social and emotional changes associated with frontal lobe damage.

  1994cited by this paper
• Advances in prospect theory: Cumulative representation of uncertainty

  1992cited by this paper
• The emotional brain.

  1980cited by this paper

• Sleep disturbances relate to problematic alcohol use via effortful control and negative emotionality.

  2025cites this paper
• Nucleus accumbens dynamics in food reward seeking and regulation by sleep

  2025influential citation
• Mechanisms of Self-Regulatory Decline in Accusatorial Interrogations

  2025cites this paper
• Sleep Restriction Increases Reward Sensitivity during Sequential Updating.

  2025cites this paper
• Subjective sleep quality in healthy young adults moderates associations of sensitivity to punishment and reward with functional connectivity of regions relevant for insomnia disorder

  2025cites this paper
• Time of Day and Sleep Deprivation Effects on Risky Decision Making

  2024cites this paper
• Influences of sleep, cortisol reactivity, and risk/reward-based decision-making on suicide.

  2024cites this paper
• The effects of sleep deprivation on risky decision making

  2024cites this paper
• Sleep Disordered Breathing and Risk for ADHD: Review of Supportive Evidence and Proposed Underlying Mechanisms

  2024cites this paper
• Modulating social learning-induced evaluation updating during human sleep

  2023cites this paper
• Lifetime Violence and Perinatal Sleep Quality: A Scoping Review

  2023cites this paper
• Critical tests of fuzzy trace theory in brain and behavior: uncertainty across time, probability, and development

  2023cites this paper
• Intertemporal Decision-making and Risk Decision-making Among Habitual Nappers Under Nap Sleep Restriction: A Study from ERP and Time-frequency

  2023cites this paper
• Altered Postcentral Connectivity after Sleep Deprivation Correlates to Impaired Risk Perception: A Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

  2023cites this paper
• Unethical decision making and sleep restriction: Experimental evidence

  2023cites this paper
• Enhanced functional connectivity in the reward circuitry in healthy adults with weekend catch‐up sleep

  2023cites this paper
• Sleep deprivation attenuates neural responses to outcomes from risky decision-making.

  2023cites this paper
• Do psychological factors exert greater influence on investment decisions than physiological factors? Evidence from Borsa Istanbul

  2023cites this paper
• Sex moderates the effects of total sleep deprivation and sleep restriction on risk preference

  2022cites this paper
• Local slow-wave activity over the right prefrontal cortex reveals individual risk preferences

  2022cites this paper
• Self-Reported Sleep Quality Across Age Modulates Resting-State Functional Connectivity in Limbic and Fronto-Temporo-Parietal Networks: An Exploratory Cross-Sectional fMRI Study

  2022cites this paper
• Preliminary Evidence That Circadian Alignment Predicts Neural Response to Monetary Reward in Late Adolescent Drinkers

  2022cites this paper
• The Mind After Midnight: Nocturnal Wakefulness, Behavioral Dysregulation, and Psychopathology

  2022cites this paper
• The Impact of Sleep Restriction on Interpersonal Conflict Resolution and the Narcotic Effect

  2022cites this paper
• Wie gefährlich ist Schlafmangel? Die Auswirkungen von Schlafmangel auf das Entscheidungsverhalten

  2022influential citation
• Sleep-mediated regulation of reward circuits: implications in substance use disorders

  2022cites this paper
• Need for cognition moderates the impairment of decision making caused by nightshift work in nurses

  2022cites this paper
• Acute sleep deprivation in humans

  2021cites this paper
• Risk-taking behavior and sustained attention after a night shift: an observational study in healthcare professionals

  2021cites this paper
• The impact of self‐selected short sleep on monetary risk taking

  2021cites this paper
• Befangenheit – was wir warum glauben

  2021cites this paper
• Sleep loss and risk-taking: new findings in a field that needs more clarity.

  2021cites this paper
• Heterogenous electrophysiological responses of functionally distinct striatal subregions to circadian and sleep-related homeostatic processes.

  2021cites this paper
• Social Engineering als Modus Operandi

  2021cites this paper
• How sleep can help maximize human potential: The role of leaders.

  2021cites this paper
• Impact of total sleep deprivation and related mood changes on approach-avoidance decisions to threat-related facial displays

  2021cites this paper
• Neural Correlates of Decision Variables and Strategic Preferences

  2020cites this paper
• NSS_A_237402 29..37

  2020cites this paper
• Sleep Deprivation Impairs Cooperative Behavior Selectively: Evidence from Prisoner’s and Chicken Dilemmas

  2020cites this paper
• Does insufficient sleep affect how you learn from reward or punishment? Reinforcement learning after 2 nights of sleep restriction

  2020cites this paper
• Sleep and high-risk behavior in military Service Members: A mega-analysis of four diverse U.S. Army units.

  2020cites this paper
• NSS_A_250586 309..324

  2020cites this paper
• Within-person Differences in Uncertainty Management, New Venture Ideation and Initial Belief Formations

  2020cites this paper
• The Weary Founder: Sleep Problems, ADHD-Like Tendencies, and Entrepreneurial Intentions

  2020cites this paper
• The protective effect of daytime sleep on planning and risk-related decision-making in emerging adults

  2020cites this paper
• Sleep Deprivation Dysregulates Brain Reward Circuitry: Implications for Psychiatric Disorders.

  2020cites this paper
• References

  2020cites this paper
• Total Sleep Deprivation Impairs Lateralization of Spatial Working Memory in Young Men

  2020cites this paper
• Effects of Total and Partial Sleep Deprivation on Reflection Impulsivity and Risk-Taking in Deliberative Decision-Making

  2020cites this paper
• Decreased modulation of segregated SEEKING and selective attention systems in chronic insomnia

  2020cites this paper
• A Multimodal Mobile Sleep Intervention for Young Adults Engaged in Risky Drinking: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial

  2020cites this paper
• Neuro-assessment of leadership training

  2019cites this paper
• Martian Environmental Psychology: The Choice Architecture of a Mars Mission and Colony

  2019cites this paper
• Framing effect, probability distortion, and gambling tendency without feedback are resistant to two nights of experimental sleep restriction

  2019cites this paper
• Neural reward processing in self-reported short sleepers: Examination of gambling task brain activation in the Human Connectome Project database.

  2019influential citation
• Sleep deprivation, effort allocation and performance.

  2019cites this paper
• Sleep and entrepreneurs' abilities to imagine and form initial beliefs about new venture ideas

  2019cites this paper
• Functional brain alterations in acute sleep deprivation: An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis.

  2019cites this paper
• Trading while sleepy? Circadian mismatch and mispricing in a global experimental asset market

  2019cites this paper
• Bayesian versus heuristic-based choice under sleep restriction and suboptimal times of day

  2019cites this paper
• A Critical Role of Basolateral Amygdala-to-Nucleus Accumbens Projection in Sleep Regulation of Reward Seeking.

  2019cites this paper
• Sleep loss, executive function, and decision-making

  2019cites this paper
• A dynamic attentional control framework for understanding sleep deprivation effects on cognition.

  2019cites this paper
• The coupling of short sleep duration and high sleep need predicts riskier decision making

  2019cites this paper
• The Sleepy Consumer and Variety Seeking

  2019cites this paper
• Circadian Variations and Risky Decision Making

  2019cites this paper
• Experimental sleep disruption and reward learning: moderating role of positive affect responses.

  2019cites this paper
• Pain-related nucleus accumbens function: modulation by reward and sleep disruption

  2019cites this paper
• Sleep in Social Cognition and Judgment

  2019cites this paper
• Clinical Features Contributing to Cortical Thickness Changes in Chronic Migraine – A Pilot Study

  2018cites this paper
• Racing the clock: The role of circadian rhythmicity in addiction across the lifespan☆

  2018cites this paper
• Dopamine and Wakefulness: Pharmacology, Genetics, and Circuitry.

  2018cites this paper
• Alter spontaneous activity in amygdala and vmPFC during fear consolidation following 24 h sleep deprivation

  2018cites this paper
• Circadian and Homeostatic Modulation of Multi-Unit Activity in Midbrain Dopaminergic Structures

  2018cites this paper
• Sleep duration and risk-taking in adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

  2018cites this paper
• Using optimal combined moderators to define heterogeneity in neural responses to randomized conditions: Application to the effect of sleep loss on fear learning

  2018cites this paper
• Sleep quality and its association with the insular cortex in emotional empathy

  2018cites this paper
• Altered Default Mode and Sensorimotor Network Connectivity With Striatal Subregions in Primary Insomnia: A Resting-State Multi-Band fMRI Study

  2018cites this paper
• Studies of Fatigue and Human Performance in the Laboratory

  2018cites this paper
• The Sleep Trap: Do Sleep Problems Prompt Entrepreneurial Motives But Undermine Entrepreneurial Means?

  2017cites this paper
• Association Between Short Sleep Duration and Risk Behavior Factors in Middle School Students

  2017cites this paper
• Sleep duration moderates the association between insula activation and risky decisions under stress in adolescents and adults

  2017cites this paper
• Positive Arousal Increases Individuals’ Preferences for Risk

  2017cites this paper
• Eye blink rate predicts reward decisions in adolescents.

  2017cites this paper
• Should You Sleep on It? The Effects of Overnight Sleep on Subjective Preference-based Choice

  2017cites this paper
• Sleep restriction and circadian effects on social decisions

  2017cites this paper
• Neural correlates of increased risk-taking propensity in sleep-deprived people along with a changing risk level

  2017cites this paper
• Low Cognitive Impulsivity Is Associated with Better Gain and Loss Learning in a Probabilistic Decision-Making Task

  2017cites this paper
• The sleep and circadian modulation of neural reward pathways: a protocol for a pair of systematic reviews

  2017cites this paper
• Eating Decisions Based on Alertness Levels After a Single Night of Sleep Manipulation: A Randomized Clinical Trial

  2017cites this paper
• Non-Rapid Eye Movement Arousal Parasomnias in Children.

  2017cites this paper
• Risk Balancing of Cold Ischemic Time against Night Shift Surgery Possibly Reduces Rates of Reoperation and Perioperative Graft Loss

  2017cites this paper
• Reduced loss aversion in pathological gambling and alcohol dependence is associated with differential alterations in amygdala and prefrontal functioning

  2017cites this paper
• Trading While Sleepy? Circadian Mismatch and Excess Volatility in a Global Experimental Asset Market

  2017cites this paper
• IZA DP No . 10984 Trading While Sleepy ? Circadian Mismatch and Excess Volatility in a Global Experimental Asset Market SEPTEMBER 2017

  2017cites this paper
• Sleep deprivation increases the costs of attentional effort: Performance, preference and pupil size

  2017cites this paper
• Impact of 36 h of total sleep deprivation on resting-state dynamic functional connectivity.

  2017cites this paper
• Neuroimaging in Normal and Abnormal Sleep

  2017cites this paper
• Bayesian versus Heuristic-Based Choice under Sleep Restriction and Suboptimal Times of Day

  2017cites this paper
• Insufficient sleep: Enhanced risk‐seeking relates to low local sleep intensity

  2017cites this paper