Prof Veena Kumari (Centre for Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, Brunel University London, UK)
Sleep Loss and Risky Decision Making

Sleep loss and sleep disruption influence a wide range of cognitive capabilities. There is growing evidence that the brain’s ability to evaluate risk and reward
is strongly impacted by sleep loss. Sleep deprived individuals, compared to well-rested controls, show
increased activity in reward-related brain areas, accompanied with decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex
which hinders appropriate risk assessment and executive control. This creates a bias towards immediate
gratification and underestimation of potentially harmful consequences, ultimately leading to impulsive and
maladaptive choices being made by sleep deprived individuals. In this talk, I will discuss recent findings on how
and when sleep loss promotes risky decision making and its implications for people with mental disorders, such
as depression.