While parents are often happy when their children are in bed at night, the offspring haggle over every minute they can stay up later. In a new study, researchers have now shown how important it is for children to get enough sleep. Accordingly, a deficiency can even have dramatic consequences for your brain.
When it’s time to say «Off to bed, kids!» in the evening, it can certainly cause resentment in families. After all, the offspring often doesn’t feel like going to bed at all. Streaming services and mobile phones often make it more difficult to get a good night’s sleep. But scientists agree that mothers and fathers who are concerned about getting enough sleep for their children are absolutely right. Because sleep is important, at any age. Those who are tired and exhausted cannot concentrate well, are more irritable and show slower reactions. But in children, insufficient sleep can have even more dramatic effects on the brain — and possibly even cause long-term damage, according to a new study.
Study on the sleep of 5566 children
As part of the research project, scientists from Boston’s Children’s Hospital examined the sleep and brain of 5,566 children aged nine to eleven. In the first step, the parents of the participating children filled out a comprehensive questionnaire on their children’s sleep and sleep problems. Among other things, questions were asked about problems falling asleep, frequent waking up, difficulties falling asleep again and/or waking up, snoring, breathing problems and nightmares.
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Additionally, in the second step of the study, the research team collected brain data from the children using a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This happened while the girls and boys were at rest. Based on this data, the researchers finally carried out a computer analysis of the various brain regions.
Too little sleep affects children’s brains
The scientists found that lack of sleep actually affected the brains of the children studied. In particular, long sleep times, frequent waking up during the night, short total sleep duration and sleep-related breathing disorders showed strong effects in the study. They led to less efficient, less flexible and less resilient brain networks. The scientists also observed «abnormal» network changes in different brain regions of poor sleepers. Among them were several cortical areas, the thalamus, the basal ganglia, the hippocampus and the cerebellum.
The cortical brain areas (brain cortex) control motor and sensory motor function. The thalamus is responsible for sensory input, while the basal ganglia and cerebellum are important for movement. The hippocampus is the interface between short- and long-term memory. In other words, insufficient or poor sleep seems to have an all-encompassing and dramatic effect on children’s brains.
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Abnormalities at a critical time in brain development
«The network anomalies we identified may result in deficits in various cognitive processes, including attention, reward, emotional regulation, memory, and the ability to plan, coordinate, and control actions and behaviors,» said study author Dr. Caterina Stamoulis in a press release.
This is particularly alarming as children’s brains are at a critical stage of development. “Children’s brain circuits mature quickly. Specifically, those that support higher-level thought processes, such as decision-making, problem-solving, and the ability to process and integrate information from the outside world. We show that insufficient sleep can therefore have a huge impact on the cognitive and mental health of individual children and the entire population.”
Sources
- Brooks, SJ, Katz, ES, Stamoulis, C (2021). Shorter Duration and Lower Quality Sleep Have Widespread Detrimental Effects on Developing Functional Brain Networks in Early Adolescence. Cerebral Cortex Communications
- Boston Children’s Hospital (2021). Inadequate sleep is bad for preteens’ brains. EurekAlert!