Too little sleep in children affects cognitive ability

sleep is a basic human need and a positive physiological process that is essential for children with rapid brain development. Is the length of time children sleeping related to their cognitive abilities and mental health? What is the effect on brain structure development?
Recently, Professor Feng Jianfeng, Dean of Fudan University's Institute of Brain Intelligence Science and Technology, led an international team to provide answers to these questions for the first time at the level of neurologic mechanisms in the brain, revealing the interaction between sleep time in childhood and brain structure, cognitive ability and mental health in large populations. The research is expected to provide scientific basis for guiding children's sleep time and promoting children's healthy lifestyle. The findings were published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
team analyzed the sleep length of nearly 11,000 children using statistical analysis based on an open database of cognitive development studies in adolescents in the United States. The study found a significant association between sleep length and children's cognitive function and mental health score (such as depression score, anxiety score). Children who sleep longer are generally better at cognitive and mental health than children who sleep longer. The length of sleep was positively cortically associated with the pre-cortical cortical layer, pre-lobes, temporal lobes, wedge lobes, and the upper and lower cerebral regions.
In addition, follow-up analysis showed a negative correlation between baseline levels of depression scoring and sleep length after one year, and intermediary analysis further revealed a regulated relationship between brain structure, depression scoring, and sleep length.
with increased school stress, the spread of electronic products, and the frequency of physical and social activities, sleep deprivation and sleep disorders are already common among children and adolescents around the world. According to the 2019 White Paper on China's Youth and Children's Sleep Index released by the China Sleep Research Association, 62.9% of adolescent children nationwide sleep less than eight hours.
" our findings show that children who sleep less than seven hours have an average behavioral problem score of 53 percent higher than those who sleep 9 to 11 hours, while those who sleep less than seven hours have an average 7.8 percent lower cognitive score, highlighting the importance of adequate sleep for children's cognitive and mental health. "In addition, we found a significant correlation between sleep length and brain structure, " Feng Jianfeng, a communications author, told China Science. Therefore, ensuring children's adequate sleep time is of great significance for children's brain development, cognitive ability and mental health. The
study sheds light on the relationship between children's sleep length and cognitive ability, mental health, and brain structure, and finds that depression in children can lead to a decrease in the length of sleep in children, but the complex causal relationship between sleep, brain, and behavior needs further study. Cheng Wei, the first author of the paper and a young researcher at Fudan University's Institute of Brain Intelligence Science and Technology, said. (Source: Huang Xin, China Science Journal)
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