Insomnia may Affect Brain Size

Recent studies have shown that chronic lack of sleep may be linked to having lower gray matter density. A research using brain imaging scans has found a connection between chronic insomnia to having lower gray matter density in specific regions that regulates the ability to rest and formulate decisions.

According to Ellemarijie Altena of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, these recent findings suggest that people suffering from chronic insomnia may have compromised certain capacities to assess the affective value of stimuli. She also adds that doing so might affect the brain’s other cognitive processes such as decision-making.

The study compared the volumes of gray and white matter in 24 people with chronic insomnia to the gray and white volumes of 13 normal sleepers. The study, which was published in Biological Psychiatry, also controlled for any psychiatric and physical disorders that could affect the brain’s normal density.

The findings have shown that regardless of how long they have suffered from severe insomnia, the people with such sleeping disorders have exhibited the most extensive loss of gray matter density. Nevertheless, the people who conducted the study have yet to figure out whether it’s the sleeping disorder that causes the extensive loss in gray matter or the other way around.