Effect of subjective sleep quality on aggression: A two-year longitudinal and fMRI pilot study

To examine the causal relationship between sleep quality and aggression and their reliable cognitive neural mechanisms. We conducted two follow-up measures on subjective sleep quality, aggression, and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) of 455 college students, with a two-year interval between the two follow-up measures. We used cross-lag model on the questionnaire and amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) on rs-fMRI for data analysis. 1) The cross-lag model showed that sleep quality at the first time could predict aggression at the second time. 2) ALFF showed poor sleep quality decreased spontaneous activity in prefrontal regions, but increased activity in limbic system regions, which may be the possible neural basis linking poor sleep quality with increased aggressive behavior. There is a causal relationship between subjective sleep quality and aggressive behavior. Our finding proposes a new view of how sleep quality affects aggressive behavior.