UGA study: Kids with sleep problems are more likely to struggle with mental health, behavior

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A new study from the University of Georgia shows that sleep isn’t just good for children, it’s crucial for healthy brain development.

Credit: By Andrii Lysenko via Adobe Stock images

A new study published in Brain and Behavior in May shows how adolescent brain development is connected to healthy sleep.

Linhao Zhang, lead author of the study and a recent doctoral graduate of the University of Georgia College of Family and Consumer Sciences, said they did this by examining default mode network (DMN) neural connectivity patterns of 2,800 children between the ages of 10 and 13.

Researchers used Fitbit watches to track the number of hours slept and the quality of sleep over two weeks.

Then they compared data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study, the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the country, with MRI brain scans.

Adolescence is a critical period of brain development marked by rapid change in brain and structure and function, UGA professor and study coauthor Assaf Oshri said.

During this time, networks involving emotion regulation, decision-making and social cognition, such as the prefrontal cortex and the default mode network studied here, are highly sensitive to environmental input and behaviors, including sleep, he said.

Usually, the DMN sits quietly in the back of the brain, Oshri said.

"It is most active when daydreaming or thinking about ourselves and reflecting about the past and the future," he said. "It involves self-awareness and thinking and emotional processing."

Children who have healthy sleep patterns develop healthy brain connections, and those without enough quality sleep are more at risk of future cognitive, behavioral and emotional problems like acting out, poor impulse control and aggressiveness.

Because these participants were so young, the study team had opportunities to do early interventions, and then to monitor them and follow up with them about behaviors.

"I also want to highlight that the study really shows a lot of individual variabilities," Zhang said. "So, we see different brain connectivity profiles. That means you're not one-size-fit-all. So when we're looking at interventions, we can target with individualized plans."