近日，国际著名媒体PsyPost对雷旭教授团队关于睡眠质量与攻击性因果关系的研究进行了采访报道。在该研究中，纳入了450名年龄范围在16~26岁的大学生，通过包含两个时间点的纵向研究设计，利用交叉滞后面板分析以及静息态功能磁共振手段对睡眠质量与攻击性之间的因果关系及潜在影响机制进行了探讨。研究结果表明，缺乏高质量的睡眠会导致攻击性增加，但高攻击性并不会导致睡眠质量变差。静息态功能磁共振数据显示，睡眠质量对攻击性的影响可能与大脑前额叶皮层的自发活动减少以及大脑边缘区域的自发活动增加有关。

睡眠对人类极其重要，不仅体现在其生理作用，还包括社会互动中的重要意义。睡眠不足会增加个人的敌意，这会破坏他们的人际关系，并对人际交往产生负面影响。因此，人们有意识地努力获得充足和高质量的睡眠是很重要的。近年来，雷旭教授团队围绕睡眠质量与攻击性间关系这一主题已获得多项研究成果。本次发表在《Biological Psychology》的论文，又受到了PsyPost网的“认知科学”栏目的专访。

PsyPost是一家心理学和神经科学相关的新闻网站，致力于报道与人类行为，认知和社会学相关的研究。该网站涵盖了心理学、精神病学、神经科学、社会学相关领域的最新发现，传播关于心理学和神经科学研究的客观信息，对各种重要、有趣和被忽视的新研究进行更新。该网站从2010年创建以来，已经被国际各大知名媒体所参照（例如AskMen.com, ATTN, Big Think, Bustle, Cosmopolitan, Complex, Daily Dot, Elite Daily, Headline & Global News, International Business Times等），月阅读量超100万，在国际上具有较强的传播及影响力。

 

报道链接：

https://www.psypost.org/2023/01/study-finds-that-poor-sleep-quality-increases-aggression-possibly-by-affecting-emotional-cognition-67250

 

报道原文：

Study finds that poor sleep quality increases aggression, possibly by affecting emotional cognition

by Beth Ellwood January 31, 2023in Cognitive Science, Mental Health

 

A lack of quality sleep can cause aggressive behavior, according to recent longitudinal findings published in the journal Biological Psychology. Brain imaging data revealed that the effect may be related to reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex and increased activity in the limbic regions.

 

Good sleep is paramount to the healthy functioning of our brains and bodies. Studies have shown that a lack of quality sleep can hinder our ability to regulate our thoughts and emotions and inflict consequences on our behavior. One of these consequences might be increased aggression.

 

While multiple studies have indicated a link between poor sleep and aggressive behavior, the direction of this relationship remains unclear — does poor sleep actually cause aggressive behavior? Study authors Haobo Zhang and Xu Lei conducted a longitudinal study to attempt to answer this question. Through neuroimaging data, they also explored the potential brain mechanism responsible for the relationship between sleep and aggression.

 

“As sleep plays an important role in the physical and mental health of individuals, we thought to uncover the causal relationship and mechanisms between sleep quality and aggressive behaviour in order to raise public awareness of the importance of sleep,” said Lei, a professor and director of the Sleep and NeuroImage Center at Southwest University in China.

 

Zhang and Lei obtained data from the Behavioral Brain Research Project of Chinese Personality (BBP), an ongoing study of undergraduate students from Chongqing, China. They focused on data collected from two time points separated by two years. For the current analysis, the sample consisted of around 450 students between the ages of 16 and 26 years old.

 

At both time points, the participants completed an assessment of their subjective sleep quality in the past month, and a measure of aggression that included the sub-dimensions of hostility, physical aggression, impulsiveness, and anger. Students also underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure their brain activity.

 

A notable limitation was that the study used self-report measures of both sleep quality and aggression. Nevertheless, the study adds to the current research by revealing evidence of a causal relationship from sleep quality to aggression. The findings further suggest that poor sleep may promote aggression by impacting emotional cognition.

 

The study, “Effect of subjective sleep quality on aggression: A two-year longitudinal and fMRI pilot study”, was authored by Haobo Zhang and Xu Lei.