For the study, appearing in The Journal of Neuroscience, the team examined a region deep within the brain called the vertical striatum in 1,129 college students. Ventral striatum helps regulate behaviour in response to an external feedback as well as reinforce behaviours that are rewarded, while reducing behaviours that are not. The results showed that those who were less susceptible to the effects of poor sleep showed significantly higher brain activity in response to positive feedback or reward sompared to negative feedback.
Poor sleep is not good, but you may have other experiences during your life that are positive and the more responsive you are to those positive experiences, the less vulnerable you may be to depressive effects of poor sleep, " Hariri said.