Nakashima Ann, Bouak Fethi, Lam Quan, Smith Ingrid, Vartanian Oshin
Defence Research and Development Canada, Toronto Research Centre.
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Neuroreport. 2018 Jan 17;29(2):123-127. doi: 10.1097/WNR.0000000000000934.
Task switching is a ubiquitous feature of many human activities that involve multitasking. In addition, owing to occupational demands, many individuals are required to engage in task switching under various levels of sleep deprivation, such as those who work in military and medical contexts. Nevertheless, little is known about the effects that sleep loss has on the neural bases of task switching. To address this shortcoming, we administered a cued switching task to participants following a night of normal sleep and also following a night of total sleep deprivation - in counterbalanced order. The behavioral results demonstrated a cost (i.e. longer reaction time) both as a function of sleep deprivation and task switching. Sleep deprivation resulted in greater activation in the frontoparietal network, whereas task switching was correlated with greater activation in the thalamus and superior temporal gyrus. However, despite increases in fatigue and sleepiness and a reduction in cognitive effectiveness (computed from actigraphic data), the reaction time cost associated with switching (i.e. switch cost) was not exacerbated by sleep deprivation. The results are discussed in terms of the involvement of executive functions in mitigating the effects of sleep deprivation on task switching.
任务切换是许多涉及多任务处理的人类活动中普遍存在的一个特征。此外，由于职业需求，许多人需要在不同程度的睡眠剥夺情况下进行任务切换，比如那些在军事和医疗领域工作的人。然而，关于睡眠缺失对任务切换神经基础的影响，我们却知之甚少。为了弥补这一不足，我们让参与者在正常睡眠一晚后以及完全睡眠剥夺一晚后（以平衡顺序）进行了一个线索切换任务。行为结果表明，无论是作为睡眠剥夺还是任务切换的函数，都存在一种代价（即更长的反应时间）。睡眠剥夺导致额顶叶网络的激活增加，而任务切换与丘脑和颞上回的激活增加相关。然而，尽管疲劳和困倦增加，且认知效率降低（根据活动记录仪数据计算得出），但与切换相关的反应时间代价（即切换代价）并未因睡眠剥夺而加剧。我们从执行功能在减轻睡眠剥夺对任务切换影响中的作用方面对结果进行了讨论。
