Fatigue can affect us in different ways and the different contexts, it is something that we have surely perceived in our own meats, trying to remain awake at night, studying before an exam or during a prolonged trip. Also, it is likely, we have noticed it after a work day that for some reason we can have lengthened.
Significant changes. A study has detected Neurological changes in professionals prolonged working hours. The study was conducted in health professionals who faced days above 52 hours per week.
“The overfracha can induce neuroadotative changes that can affect cognitive and emotional health,” Explain the team responsible for the study. Although it is a pilot study, which implies caution when drawing conclusions, the work provides new evidence on the impact of excess work on our well -being and in our productivity.
The price of excess work. The global cost of excess work It is considerable. Beyond conventional occupational hazards, overfracha It has been related with an increase in the risk associated with cardiovascular diseases or metabolic disorders, among other problems.
Recently, A study Posted in the magazine Environment International He estimated in almost 750,000 deaths attributable to excess work in 2016. This resulted in the loss of more than 23 million years of life adjusted by disability (Daly) linked to certain cardiovascular diseases.
Excess work, marked in the brain. In addition to physiological problems, excess work can also cause mental health problems. In an effort to better understand their neurological context, the team responsible for the new study began studying the brain of professionals in a field, that of medicine, where marathon days are relatively common.
The team He turned to the Gachon Regional Cohort (Grocs) to obtain certain data, which complemented with magnetic resonance scanning, for which they had a total of 110 participants, the majority sanitary. 32 of the participants (28%) met the requirements to be included in the group of those who worked in excess, while the rest would have “standard” days.
To study the changes, the team resorted to a technique called voxel -based morphometry (VBM), a useful technique when identifying and comparing regional differences in the gray matter of the brain.
Changes in 17 brain regions. They ran into significant changes in some regions related to executive function and emotional regulation. An example cited by the team is in A 19% increase In the volume of the average frontal turn, an area involved in key cognitive functions.
The analysis allowed to detect increases in 17 regions of the brain. One of these areas was the upper frontal turn, an area involved in attention, planning and decision making. Another area of interest was the insula, key zone in the integration of sensory stimuli and engines, but also in emotional processing and understanding of the social context, the team points out.
The details of the study were published In an article In the magazine Occupational & Environmental Medicine.
Small scale. The team itself warns that there are limitations that imply the need to be cautious in the interpretation of the results. For example, this is a pilot study on a limited sample of participants. In addition, experimental and control groups are not random, which implies a possibility of self -selection and with it a possible bias in the analysis.
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Image | National Cancer Institute
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