Shenfield Lucienne, Beanland Vanessa, Filtness Ashleigh, Apthorp Deborah
Research School of Psychology, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
Department of Psychology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
PeerJ. 2020 May 4;8:e8960. doi: 10.7717/peerj.8960. eCollection 2020.
Sleep is one of our most important physiological functions that maintains physical and mental health. Two studies examined whether discrete areas of attention are equally affected by sleep loss. This was achieved using a repeated-measures within-subjects design, with two contrasting conditions: normal sleep and partial sleep restriction of 5-h. Study 1 compared performance on a sustained attention task (Psychomotor Vigilance task; PVT) with performance on a transient attention task (Attentional Blink; AB). PVT performance, but not performance on the AB task, was impaired after sleep restriction. Study 2 sought to determine the neural underpinnings of the phenomenon, using electroencephalogram (EEG) frequency analysis, which measured activity during the brief eyes-closed resting state before the tasks. AB performance was unaffected by sleep restriction, despite clearly observable changes in brain activity. EEG results showed a significant reduction in resting state alpha oscillations that was most prominent centrally in the right hemisphere. Changes in individual alpha and delta power were also found to be related to changes in subjective sleepiness and PVT performance. Results likely reflect different levels of impairment in specific forms of attention following sleep loss.
睡眠是维持身心健康的最重要生理功能之一。两项研究探讨了注意力的不同方面是否同样受到睡眠缺失的影响。这是通过重复测量的被试内设计实现的，有两种对比条件：正常睡眠和5小时的部分睡眠限制。研究1比较了持续注意力任务（心理运动警觉任务；PVT）的表现与瞬态注意力任务（注意瞬脱；AB）的表现。睡眠限制后，PVT表现受损，但AB任务的表现未受影响。研究2试图通过脑电图（EEG）频率分析来确定该现象的神经基础，EEG频率分析测量了任务前短暂闭眼休息状态下的活动。尽管大脑活动有明显变化，但AB表现不受睡眠限制的影响。EEG结果显示，静息状态下的阿尔法振荡显著减少，在右半球中央最为明显。还发现个体阿尔法和德尔塔功率的变化与主观嗜睡和PVT表现的变化有关。结果可能反映了睡眠缺失后特定形式注意力受损的不同程度。
