Research paper
St-Onge MP, Wolfe S, Sy M, Shechter A, Hirsch J. Sleep restriction increases the neuronal response to unhealthy food in normal-weight individuals. International Journal of Obesity. 2014;38(3):411-416. doi:10.1038/ijo.2013.114. PMID: 23779051. PMCID: PMC3883872.
Why we cite it
fMRI study that extended the sleep–food desire findings of csh07 (Greer et al. 2013) with a more ecologically valid design: five consecutive nights of partial sleep restriction (4 hours) rather than one night of total deprivation, in a randomized crossover trial with a 3-week washout. Published in International Journal of Obesity, the key finding was that after sleep restriction, unhealthy food images (pizza, doughnuts, chocolate) produced greater activation than healthy foods (carrots, yogurt, oatmeal) in reward and food-sensitive regions, a pattern not seen after habitual sleep. A relative decrease in right-insula activity was associated with increased food intake. The authors conclude that the inverse insula relationship and the enhanced activation to unhealthy foods together provide ”a model of neuronal mechanisms relating short sleep duration to obesity” (the abstract’s verb is provides, with that whole clause as its subject). The intake data themselves are ”reported elsewhere”. (Corrected 2026-09-19. This read ”but not to healthy foods”, as if healthy-food responses were measured unchanged; ”suggesting that sleep restriction impairs the brain’s interoceptive monitoring”, which is not the paper’s account; and ”this paper demonstrates that the neural bias translates directly into eating behavior”, when the paper relays the intake result from its companion report and calls its own contribution a model.) Together with csh07 (neural double hit), csw06 (behavioral snacking), and csh06 (hormonal paradox), this forms the fourth pillar of the sleep–eating evidence base.