Mental fatigue is not only a factor in fatigue, but can have significant consequences on human behavior. A recent study conducted in Italy revealed that irritability and loss of self-control can result from “local sleep” in the brain, a condition in which certain brain areas begin to show sleep-like activity even when the individual is awake.
A study published in the journal of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States was led by the Imt School of Lucca in collaboration with the University of Florence. Under the direction of Pietro Pietrini, the team examined how mental fatigue affects decision-making processes and behavior. The first author of the study, Erica Ordali, emphasized that the results offer a scientific explanation for a common concept: sleeping on it before making decisions. Pietrini added that when the brain areas responsible for self-control are tired, individuals tend to make choices that may be against their best interests.
“Our hypothesis was that local sleep was the neuronal manifestation of the exhaustion phenomenon,” Ordali explained. To test this theory, researchers had 44 volunteers perform fatigue tasks for an hour. Then, under conditions of mental fatigue, the participants played games that required varying levels of aggression and cooperation while being monitored by electroencephalogram (EEG).
The results showed that in the most fatigued subjects, some areas of the frontal cortex showed brain waves typical of sleep. This suggests that mental fatigue not only affects individual behavior but could have repercussions in multiple daily contexts, including financial transactions and legal decisions. Ordali concluded: “Our study shows that mental fatigue has a measurable effect on behavior and increases the propensity for hostile attitudes.” Looking to the future, these findings could open new avenues to understand how to better manage mental well-being and improve the quality of decisions in everyday life. Awareness of the impact of mental fatigue could become crucial to promoting more positive and constructive interactions in society.
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