Local slow-wave activity over the right prefrontal cortex reveals individual risk preferences
Mirjam Studler,
Lorena R.R. Gianotti,
Katharina Koch,
Jan Hausfeld,
Leila Tarokh,
Angelina Maric,
Daria Knoch
Affiliations
Mirjam Studler
Department of Social Neuroscience and Social Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Bern, Fabrikstrasse 8, Bern 3012, Switzerland
Lorena R.R. Gianotti
Department of Social Neuroscience and Social Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Bern, Fabrikstrasse 8, Bern 3012, Switzerland; Corresponding authors.
Katharina Koch
Department of Social Neuroscience and Social Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Bern, Fabrikstrasse 8, Bern 3012, Switzerland
Jan Hausfeld
Department of Social Neuroscience and Social Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Bern, Fabrikstrasse 8, Bern 3012, Switzerland; CREED and Amsterdam School of Economics, University of Amsterdam, Roeterstraat 11, Amsterdam 1018WB , Netherlands
Leila Tarokh
University Hospital of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bolligenstrasse 111, Bern 3000, Switzerland; Translational Research Center, University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bolligenstrasse 111, Bern 3000, Switzerland
Angelina Maric
Department of Neurology, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Frauenklinikstrasse 26, Zürich 8091, Switzerland
Daria Knoch
Department of Social Neuroscience and Social Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Bern, Fabrikstrasse 8, Bern 3012, Switzerland; Corresponding authors.
In everyday life, we have to make decisions under varying degrees of risk. Even though previous research has shown that the manipulation of sleep affects risky decision-making, it remains unknown whether individual, temporally stable neural sleep characteristics relate to individual differences in risk preferences. Here, we collected sleep data under normal conditions in fifty-four healthy adults using a portable high-density EEG at participants’ home. Whole-brain corrected for multiple testing, we found that lower slow-wave activity (SWA, an indicator of sleep depth) in a cluster of electrodes over the right prefrontal cortex (PFC) is associated with higher individual risk propensity. Importantly, the association between local sleep depth and risk preferences remained significant when controlling for total sleep time and for time spent in deep sleep, i.e., sleep stages N2 and N3. Moreover, the association between risk preferences and SWA over the right PFC was very similar in all sleep cycles. Because the right PFC plays a central role in cognitive control functions, we speculate that local sleep depth in this area, as reflected by SWA, might serve as a dispositional indicator of self-regulatory ability, which in turn reflects risk preferences.
