People walk down a street in Seoul’s financial district of Yeouido on Sept. 23, 2021. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Sept. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — The primary reason why shift workers tend to suffer more from sleep disorders and depression than non-shift workers is the activation of a specific brain area associated with information processing capability, a study indicated Monday.
A joint research team from Seoul National University Hospital and Samsung Medical Center divided 121 workers into two groups — shift workers (60 people) and non-shift workers (61 people) — to compare the degree of brain activation after undergoing an emotional Stroop task.
After presenting specific words related to emotion and sleep, the research team asked the participants to push the buttons that have the same color as the words as quickly as possible.
During the process, the research team took functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of their brains.
The researchers observed that the dorsolateral frontal cortex of the shift workers was more activated than that of non-shift workers, especially when the former performed tasks associated with emotionally negative words.
The excessive activation of the brain area indicates that shift workers are more vulnerable to emotional adjustment and bigger efforts are needed for them to adjust to negative emotions.
“If new technology such as neuromodulation is applied for the newly identified brain area, it would contribute to mitigating shift workers’ sleep disorder and depression symptoms,” said Lee Yu-jin, a neuropsychiatry professor at Seoul National University Hospital.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
