Trial reportNature communications2013
The impact of sleep deprivation on food desire in the human brain.
Trial report in Nature communications, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT03031132 (The Effects of a High Protein Breakfast on Appetite and Sleep in Young Adults), which is not on this map. Cited by 183 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
The Effects of a High Protein Breakfast on Appetite and Sleep in Young Adults
Who cites it
183 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 344 citations in OpenAlex.
- Chronotype and disordered eating indicators: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Clinical psychology review · 2026Pooled it
- The influence of sleep on human taste function and perception: A systematic review.Journal of sleep research · 2025Pooled it
- Preventing and treating childhood obesity by sleeping better: a systematic review.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Pooled it
- Short sleep duration and the risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease/metabolic associated fatty liver disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Sleep & breathing = Schlaf & Atmung · 2023Pooled it
- The Effects of Food Advertisements on Food Intake and Neural Activity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Recent Experimental Studies.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2023Pooled it
- The Window Matters: A Systematic Review of Time Restricted Eating Strategies in Relation to Cortisol and Melatonin Secretion.Nutrients · 2021Pooled it
- How acute total sleep loss affects the attending brain: a meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies.Sleep · 2015Pooled it
- Randomised feasibility trial of a remotely delivered holistic UK employee programme combining tailored sleep hygiene, diet, and physical activity counselling for weight management: a mixed-methods evaluation.Journal of nutritional science · 2026Trial
- DELTA: Strengthening human biological resilience with an N=1 digital health and dynamic biomarker protocol.PloS one · 2026Trial
- Effects of sleep deprivation on food-related Pavlovian-instrumental transfer: a randomized crossover experiment.Scientific reports · 2024Trial
- The effect of diets with different inflammatory scores on inflammation and sleep in obese subjects: a randomized controlled trial.Revista da Associacao Medica Brasileira (1992) · 2024Trial
- Chronic Circadian Disruption and Sleep Restriction Influence Subjective Hunger, Appetite, and Food Preference.Nutrients · 2022Trial
- Trial
- The Effects of Experimental Manipulation of Sleep Duration on Neural Response to Food Cues.Sleep · 2017Trial
- The Impact of Sleep Debt on Excess Adiposity and Insulin Sensitivity in Patients with Early Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine · 2016Trial
- Elevated ghrelin predicts food intake during experimental sleep restriction.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2016Trial
- Nighttime sleep duration and hedonic eating in childhood.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2015Trial
- Increased impulsivity in response to food cues after sleep loss in healthy young men.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2014Trial
- Does Sleep Curtailment Stimulate Appetite, Motivation to Eat and Dietary Intake in Humans? A Narrative Synthesis of Evidence and Considerations for Future Studies.Journal of sleep research · 2026Review
- Peripheral Inflammation and Sleep Loss Induce Coordinated Motivational Changes: An Experimental Two-Hit Stress Model.Journal of sleep research · 2026Article
123 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Epidemiological evidence supports a link between sleep loss and obesity. However, the detrimental impact of sleep deprivation on central brain mechanisms governing appetitive food desire remains unknown. Here we report that sleep deprivation significantly decreases activity in appetitive evaluation regions within the human frontal cortex and insular cortex during food desirability choices, combined with a converse amplification of activity within the amygdala. Moreover, this bi-directional change in the profile of brain activity is further associated with a significant increase in the desire for weight-gain promoting high-calorie foods following sleep deprivation, the extent of which is predicted by the subjective severity of sleep loss across participants. These findings provide an explanatory brain mechanism by which insufficient sleep may lead to the development/maintenance of obesity through diminished activity in higher-order cortical evaluation regions, combined with excess subcortical limbic responsivity, resulting in the selection of foods most capable of triggering weight-gain.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.