Poor sleep quality is significantly associated with effort but not temporal discounting of monetary rewards.

Abstract

Experimental sleep deprivation has been shown to differentially affect behavioral indices of effort and temporal discounting, 2 domains of reward processing often observed to be impaired in depression. Experimental sleep deprivation is phenomenologically different from sleep deprivation in everyday life (e.g., poor quality sleep or habitual short sleep duration). Thus, experimental findings may not explain how sleep disturbance impacts reward processing in everyday life. The present study examined associations of past-month self-reported typical sleep quality and duration among 325 young adults who completed behavioral tasks of effort and temporal discounting. Analyses accounted for the potential influence of self-reported mood symptoms and reward sensitivity. Results showed that poorer sleep quality, but not shorter sleep duration, was associated with less preference for high effort/high reward choices on the Effort Expenditure for Reward task (EEfRT) and was significant when accounting for depression and reward sensitivity, neither of which significantly predicted effort. Neither poorer sleep quality nor shorter sleep duration was significantly associated with a preference for smaller, more immediate reward on a delay discounting task. Findings suggest sleep quality, irrespective of total hours of sleep, may independently affect reward-relevant effort, which may have implications for the study and treatment of depression.

The phenotype of recovery XI: associations of sleep quality and perceived stress with discounting and quality of life in substance use recovery

“…In contrast to DD, the associations of sleep quality and perceived stress with ED were marginal in the present study. This observation contrasts with findings demonstrating that poorer sleep quality and reduced sleep duration are associated with less preference for high effort and high rewards, but not DD among healthy young adults [36,49]. Further, while the literature on the impact of stress on ED in humans is scant, in rats, stress exposure is related to decreases in preference for high effort, high-rewards [51].…”

“…The relevance of ED to addiction recovery has been hypothesized, noting overcoming addiction, remaining abstinent, and pursuing non-drug activities is effortful [9]. Furthermore, studies in healthy adults and animals have shown that sleep deprivation, fatigue, and acute stressors increased ED rates [36,[49][50][51][52].…”

Insomnia symptoms and neurofunctional correlates among adults receiving buprenorphine for opioid use disorder

“…higher p-factor) could have yielded even stronger results. The null results in the “cognition” domain of the PhAB-Brief documented here may be attributable to our use of a temporal discounting task instead of an effort-based discounting task [ 16 ]; future work should explore differences in discounting task designs and seek to understand how insomnia may differentially impact each of these impulsivity measures. Participant responses on some items may have been impacted by recall and social desirability biases [ 53 ] and the relatively small sample size limits the generalizability of our findings.…”

“…In humans, these disruptions can manifest as differences in incentive-related decision-making that can be measured using validated metrics [ 9 , 13 , 15 – 17 ]. Moreover, sleep quality can impact how individuals choose to respond (e.g., to avoid) exertion of effort [ 16 ], which could be a mechanism for poorer performance on a variety of tasks. Sleep quality may thus influence a set of neurofunctional domains that are believed to predict substance use treatment outcomes [ 21 ].…”

A common alteration in effort-based decision-making in apathy, anhedonia, and late circadian rhythm

“…On a behavioural level, sleep deprivation, poor sleep quality, and insomnia were linked to low motivation in effort-based decision-making [52][53][54] and evening brightlight exposure enhanced effort willingness, possibly by enhancing dopamine through melatonin suppression 55 . Early chronotype predicted treatment effect on motivational behaviour in a sample of depressed subjects with comorbid insomnia 56 .…”