Chronic sleep restriction impairs spatial memory in rats.

Although numerous experimental investigations have evaluated the neurobehavioral effects of either short periods of total sleep deprivation or selective rapid eye movement sleep deprivation, few studies have examined the effects of chronic sleep restriction (CSR). Long-Evans rats were deprived of sleep by the automated movement of activity wheels for 18 h/day for 5 consecutive days from 16:00 to 10:00 h, and were allowed 6 h/day of sleep opportunity (10:00-16:00 h; lights on from 10:00 to 22:00 h). Activity wheels were intermittently activated on a 3 s on : 12 s off schedule for the CSR condition, whereas a schedule of 36 min of continuous wheel movement in every 3 h was used for a cage movement control condition. A cross-over design was used with rats serving in both the CSR and the movement control conditions with 2 days of rest between conditions. Water maze acquisition training occurred at 16:00 h immediately after the 6-h sleep opportunity on each of the first 4 days, followed by a probe trial on day 5 to assess spatial memory recall. Although the rate of learning/acquisition was not affected by the daily 18 h of CSR, the day 5 recall of the platform location was impaired on three different probe trial measures. Thus, CSR impaired spatial memory, but did not affect the rate of learning/acquisition in the water maze.