Prefrontal cortex deprivation

Braun, K., Lange, E., Metzger, M., and Poeggel, G. (2000) Maternal separation followed by early social deprivation affects the development of monoaminergic fiber systems in the medial prefrontal cortex of Octodon degus. Neuroscience 95 309—318. 

Combining these anecdotal observations with our findings of selectively greater deactivation in the prefrontal cortex when compared to the whole brain in sleep deprivation (4), a picture emerges of conscientious application of effort to... 

There have been several theories behind the brain circuits involved in the development of deficit symptoms. One, published in 1987 by Daniel Weinberger, attempted to explain the seemingly paradoxical concurrent hyperdopaminergic state of psychosis and hypodopaminergic state of negative symptoms. He postulated that an early developmental insult to mesocortical dopamine afferents would simultaneously deprive the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of dopamine and lead to dysregulation/dopamine excess in mesolimbic projections. This is supported by what Pycock et al. (1980) had found in rats a lesion of the dopaminergic afferents in the prefrontal cortex led to subcortical dopamine overactivity. 

Brain glucose utilization decreases when alertness and cognitive performance are impaired by sleep deprivation, especially in the prefrontal cortex, a region involved in alertness, attention, and higher order cognitive processes and in the thalamus, a subcortical structure involved in alertness and attention. 

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