Lack of sleep makes optimistic

People who go without enough sleep take more risks, a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience shows.

American scientists of Duke University used MRI-scans to study the brains of people who had hardly slept and those who had a good-night’s sleep. The scans of the volunteers who had a lack of sleep showed increased activity in the parts of the brain that assess positive outcomes, and decreased activity in the areas that process negative outcomes.

In other words: a lack of sleep makes people overly optimistic, and optimists take risky decisions, for instance, when spending money on gambling machines.

Drinking caffeine, exercising or getting fresh air do not undo the effects of a lack of sleep. [EV/transl. YV]

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