Acute Sleep Restriction Has Differential Effects on Components of Attention

Abstract

Inadequate nightly sleep duration can impair daytime functioning, including interfering with attentional and other cognitive processes. Current models posit that attention is a complex function regulated by several separate, but interacting, neural systems responsible for vigilance, orienting, and executive control. However, it is not clear to what extent each of these underlying component processes is affected by sleep loss. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of acute sleep restriction on these attentional components using the Dalhousie Computerized Attention Battery (DalCAB). DalCAB tasks were administered to healthy women (aged 19–25 years) on two consecutive mornings: once after a night with 9 h time in bed (TIB), and once again after either another night with 9 h TIB (control condition, n = 19) or after a night with 3 h TIB (sleep restriction condition, n = 20). Self-ratings of sleepiness and mood were also obtained following each sleep condition. Participants showed increases in self-reported sleepiness and fatigue after the second night only in the sleep restriction group. Sleep restriction primarily affected processing speed on tasks measuring vigilance; however, performance deficits were also observed on some measures of executive function (e.g., go/no-go task, flanker task, working memory). Tasks assessing orienting of attention were largely unaffected. These results indicate that acute sleep restriction has differential effects on distinct components of attention, which should be considered in modeling the impacts of sleep loss on the underlying attentional networks.

Sleep duration, sleep variability, and impairments of visual attention

“…First, it is possible that these particular ANT-derived variables are insensitive to natural variation in sleep duration and intra-individual sleep duration variability. The experimental sleep-deprivation literature indeed suggests that while sustained attention (which would be analogous to our measure of overall RT) and alerting are particularly sensitive to sleep loss, other attentional functions, including orienting and executive function, may remain spared (Cunningham et al, 2018; Roca et al, 2012; Tkachenko & Dinges, 2018, but see Martella et al, 2011). Second, it is possible that there was not enough variability in our data for such effects to emerge.…”

Fluoride exposure and duration and quality of sleep in a Canadian population-based sample

“…This proportion of individuals reporting low habitual sleep durations is consistent with a larger sample of 10,976 adult respondents of the CHMS of which 32% reported sleeping less than the recommended duration [ 36 ]. Insufficient sleep is associated with various adverse outcomes, including changes in mood [ 37 – 40 ], cognition [ 37 , 40 – 42 ], and reaction time [ 40 , 43 , 44 ], higher rates of motor vehicle accidents [ 45 ], hypertension, cardiovascular disease [ 46 – 48 ], and diabetes [ 47 ].…”

Acute and chronic sleep deprivation in residents: Cognition and stress biomarkers

“…Insufficient sleep has deleterious effects on health, 2,3 increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, premature aging and obesity 4 . Insufficient sleep is also associated with poor mental and cognitive functioning 5,6 . Even one night of sleep deprivation, defined as having <5 hours of uninterrupted sleep, leads to a detectable decline in cognitive performance 7 .…”