Neuroscience
In the annals of the incredibly obvious, researchers have shown that "late-night gambling is a risky game":
Obviousman by Wiley Miller
Reference
Vinod Venkatraman, YM Lisa Chuah, Scott A Huettel, Michael WL Chee (2007). Sleep Deprivation Elevates Expectation of Gains and Attenuates Response to Losses Following Risky Decisions. Sleep 30:603-609
Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- Psychological Titbits From The 38th Society For Neuroscience Annual Meeting Held In Washington Dc Last Month
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Lack of sleep impairs the human brain's ability to store new information in memory, researchers have found. Past research has already shown that sleep is vital for consolidating recently-learned material but now Matthew Walker and colleagues have...
- To Die, To Sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause... -- William Shakespeare - To be, or not to be (from Hamlet 3/1) Jacob's Dream woodcut,...
- Deep Throats, Hacked Minds, And Sleepy Heads
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- Sleep Now
["... Now" is a short post of cog sci topics in the news] Last week, the New York Times had several articles on sleep. You can see the list at Bora Zivkovic's A Blog Around the Clock blog: Sleeping with the New York Times. David Corcoran of the New...
Neuroscience
Is It Bad To Gamble When Sleep Deprived?
In the annals of the incredibly obvious, researchers have shown that "late-night gambling is a risky game":
Obviousman by Wiley Miller
Blame boneheaded bets on your tired brainWas it really that incredibly obvious? No. That is not what the study by Venkatraman et al. (2007) showed at all:
Scientists pinpoint why late-night gamblers lose big time
By Linda Carroll
. . .
Scientists set up experiments in which people have a choice between a high-risk gamble with the opportunity for a big payout and a low-risk option that offers the prospect of more moderate gain. They compared the decisions made by well-rested gamblers and those who’ve been up for hours on end.
Sure enough, the studies showed that when sleep is curtailed, people are drawn to risky, but high-paying, options.
There was no significant difference in risk preference between the 2 states. Subjects earned an average bonus of $35.50 (SD = $6.71) for the rested-wakefulness session and $35.70 (SD = $10.08) for the sleep-deprivation session.To be fair, though, the authors did brain scans on these sleepy gamblers to assess changes in gain/loss sensitivity with sleep deprivation, and other media outlets were a little less tabloid-ish with their headlines (and more accurate in their reporting):
Sleep Deprivation Can Threaten Competent Decision-makingStay tuned for more on the nucleus accumbens!
. . .
The authors found that the nucleus accumbens, an area in the brain involved with the anticipation of reward, becomes selectively more active when high risk-high payoff choices were made under conditions of sleep deprivation. Further, the number of high risk decisions did not increase with sleep deprivation, but the expectation of being rewarded for making the high risk gamble was elevated. Allied to this finding was the observation that there was an attenuated response to losses in the insula, a part of the brain involved with evaluating the emotional significance of an event.
Reference
Vinod Venkatraman, YM Lisa Chuah, Scott A Huettel, Michael WL Chee (2007). Sleep Deprivation Elevates Expectation of Gains and Attenuates Response to Losses Following Risky Decisions. Sleep 30:603-609
Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- Psychological Titbits From The 38th Society For Neuroscience Annual Meeting Held In Washington Dc Last Month
An afternoon nap could boost your associative memory skills. William Fishbein and Hiuyan Lau (City University of New York) tested participants' ability to remember the English meanings of familiar Chinese characters they'd learned earlier and...
- Students: It's Time To Ditch The Pre-exam All-nighter
Lack of sleep impairs the human brain's ability to store new information in memory, researchers have found. Past research has already shown that sleep is vital for consolidating recently-learned material but now Matthew Walker and colleagues have...
- To Die, To Sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause... -- William Shakespeare - To be, or not to be (from Hamlet 3/1) Jacob's Dream woodcut,...
- Deep Throats, Hacked Minds, And Sleepy Heads
First, a non-neuro "thank you" to The Washington Post and Mark Felt for the roles they played all those years ago. Today's lead editorial in the Post (free registration required). Second, a "thank you" to MindHacks.com for their kind words earlier...
- Sleep Now
["... Now" is a short post of cog sci topics in the news] Last week, the New York Times had several articles on sleep. You can see the list at Bora Zivkovic's A Blog Around the Clock blog: Sleeping with the New York Times. David Corcoran of the New...