Influence of Age, Circadian and Homeostatic Processes on Inhibitory Motor Control: A Go/Nogo Task Study

Abstract

IntroductionThe contribution of circadian system and sleep pressure influences on executive performance as a function of age has never been studied. The aim of our study was to determine the age-related evolution of inhibitory motor control (i.e., ability to suppress a prepotent motor response) and sustained attention under controlled high or low sleep pressure conditions.Methods14 healthy young males (mean age = 23±2.7; 20–29 years) and 11 healthy older males (mean age = 68±1.4; 66–70 years) were recruited. The volunteers were placed for 40 hours in “constant routine”. In the “Sleep Deprivation SD” condition, the volunteer was kept awake for 40 hours to obtain a high sleep pressure condition interacting with the circadian process. In the “NAP” condition, the volunteer adopted a short wake/sleep cycle (150/75 min) resulting in a low sleep pressure condition to counteract the homeostatic pressure and investigate the circadian process. Performances were evaluated by a simple reaction time task and a Go/Nogo task repeated every 3H45.ResultsIn the SD condition, inhibitory motor control (i.e., ability to inhibit an inappropriate response) was impaired by extended wakefulness equally in both age groups (P<.01). Sustained attention (i.e. ability to respond accurately to appropriate stimuli) on the executive task decreased under sleep deprivation in both groups, and even more in young participants (P<.05). In the NAP condition, age did not influence the time course of inhibitory motor control or sustained attention. In the SD and NAP conditions, older participants had a less fluctuating reaction time performance across time of day than young participants (P<.001).ConclusionAging could be a protective factor against the effects of extended wakefulness especially on sustained attention failures due to an attenuation of sleep pressure with duration of time awake.

REM theta activity enhances inhibitory control in typically developing children but not children with ADHD symptoms

“…Although circadian processes influence inhibitory control (Sagaspe et al 2012), our data support an active role of sleep in improving inhibition. Morning inhibitory control was specifically associated with REM theta activity during the overnight sleep bout, suggesting overnight improvement is likely a REM theta-dependent process.…”

Mood impairment is stronger in young than in older adults after sleep deprivation

“…No age differences occurred with respect to rated sleepiness. Previous results on age differences in sleepiness after prolonged wakefulness are variable (Duffy et al., ; Philip et al., ; Sagaspe et al., ). The increased subjective stress levels after sleep deprivation are in line with previous research (Franzen et al., ; Wright et al., ).…”

Feedback Blunting: Total Sleep Deprivation Impairs Decision Making that Requires Updating Based on Feedback

“…[36][37][38] In the traditional go/no go tasks used in previous sleep deprivation studies, a prepotent tendency to respond to one stimulus is created by having a majority of trials require the go response. False alarms to no go trials in this context are taken as a measure of ability to inhibit a prepotent response.…”

“…Compared to the go/no go based reversal learning decision task used in the current study, the burden on learning initial contingencies and on using feedback to acquire new contingencies is much lower in the traditional go/no go tasks, and sleep deprivation has more modest and inconsistent effects on performance. 38,39 The WM scanning task provided an assessment of subjects' ability to encode and maintain information in the focus of attention. Both well-rested and sleep deprived subjects showed the expected serial position effect on the WM scanning task, i.e., higher accuracy and faster responses for more recent items in the memory set and a progressive decline in accuracy and response speed for more temporally remote items.…”