Sleep duration differentially affects brain activation in response to food images in adolescents with overweight/obesity compared to adolescents with normal weight.

Study Objectives: Sleep is an important behavior that affects appetite and eating in adolescents. Our study examined food-related neural activation in brain regions associated with food reward and inhibition in adolescents under sleep-restricted and well-rested conditions.

Methods: In this within-subjects study, 52 adolescents (ages 12-18; 46% female; M age = 15.96 years, SD = 1.56) with normal weight (NW; N = 29, M body mass index % [BMI%] = 54.55, SD = 24.54) or overweight/obesity (OV/OB; N = 23, M BMI% = 93.78, SD = 4.60) spent 5 hours in bed at home each night for five consecutive nights and 9 hours in bed at home each night for 5 consecutive nights, with the first day of each condition occurring 4 weeks apart. The morning following each sleep modification period, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were collected while participants performed an inhibitory (go/no-go) task with food stimuli.

Results: We found significantly greater activation in brain regions associated with inhibition in adolescents with NW in response to food cues when sleep restricted. No increase in inhibition-related neural activation was observed in adolescents with OV/OB when sleep restricted. We also found neural activation consistent with greater reward processing associated with food cues following sleep restriction regardless of weight status.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that chronic sleep restriction may increase the likelihood of suboptimal dietary behavior for adolescents with OV/OB because they do not experience increased inhibition-related neural responding to counter possible increased reward-related neural responding following sleep restriction.