Biological psychologySep 11, 2012

Changes in weekend and weekday sleep times are linked to differences in reward system activity in healthy teens

Circadian Biology Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Mar 25, 2026

Abstract

Greater weekend-weekday shifts in sleep timing are associated with decreased mPFC and striatal reactivity to reward.

Sleep timing shifts to later hours during adolescence may conflict with early school start times.
Irregular weekday-weekend sleep schedules are linked to circadian misalignment.
Circadian misalignment is associated with increased risk for depression and substance abuse.
Decreased reactivity in key brain regions involved in reward processing may result from greater shifts in sleep timing.

Simplified

Sleep timing shifts later during adolescence, thus conflicting with early school start times. This can lead to irregular weekday-weekend schedules and circadian misalignment, which have been linked to depression and substance abuse, consistent with disruptions in the processing of rewards. We tested associations between weekend-weekday shifts in sleep timing and the neural response to monetary reward in healthy adolescents, using actigraphy and a functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm. Region-of-interest analyses focused on the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and striatum, both of which are implicated in reward function. Analyses adjusted for pubertal stage, sex, and total sleep time. Greater weekend-weekday advances in midsleep were associated with decreased mPFC and striatal reactivity to reward, which could reflect reduced regulatory response and reward sensitivity. We speculate that circadian misalignment associated with weekend shifts in sleep timing may contribute to reward-related problems such as depression and substance abuse.

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Changes in weekend and weekday sleep times are linked to differences in reward system activity in healthy teens

Abstract

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