Unit for Experimental Psychiatry, Division of Sleep and Chronobiology, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA.
Sleep. 2021 Aug 13;44(8). doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsab051.
Chronic sleep loss is associated with escalating declines in vigilant attention across days of sleep restriction. However, studies exceeding 2 weeks of chronic sleep loss are scarce, and the cognitive performance outcomes assessed are limited. We assessed the effects of 6 weeks of chronic sleep restriction on a range of cognitive domains in 15 high-performing individuals (38.5 ± 8.2 years, 6 women) confined to small space in groups of 4. Sleep opportunities were limited to 5 h on weekdays and 8 h on weekends. Individual sleep-wake patterns were recorded with actigraphy. Neurobehavioral performance was assessed in evenings with Cognition, a computerized battery of ten tests assessing a range of cognitive domains. There were some small to moderate effects of increasing sleep debt relative to pre-mission baseline, with decreases in accuracy across cognitive domains (standardized β = -0.121, p = 0.001), specifically on tests of spatial orientation (β = -0.289, p = 0.011) and vigilant attention (β = -0.688, p < 0.001), which were not restored by two nights of weekend recovery sleep. Cognitive and subjective decrements occurred despite occasional daytime napping in breach of study protocol, evening testing around the circadian peak, and access to caffeine before 14:00. Sensorimotor speed, spatial learning and memory, working memory, abstraction and mental flexibility, emotion identification, abstract reasoning, cognitive throughput, and risk decision making were not significantly affected by sleep debt. Taken together with modest lower subjective ratings of happiness and healthiness, these findings underline the importance of sufficient sleep, on both an acute and chronic basis, for performance in selected cognitive domains and subjective wellbeing in operationally relevant environments.
慢性睡眠缺失与警觉注意力在睡眠限制天数内逐渐下降有关。然而，超过 2 周的慢性睡眠缺失研究很少，评估的认知表现结果也很有限。我们评估了 6 周慢性睡眠限制对 15 名表现出色的个体（38.5 ± 8.2 岁，6 名女性）在小空间内分组为 4 人时一系列认知领域的影响。工作日的睡眠时间限制为 5 小时，周末为 8 小时。个体的睡眠-觉醒模式通过活动记录仪记录。认知评估在晚上进行神经行为表现评估，这是一个计算机化的测试电池，评估一系列认知领域。与任务前基线相比，随着睡眠债务的增加，出现了一些较小到中等程度的影响，认知领域的准确性下降（标准化β=-0.121，p=0.001），特别是在空间定向测试（β=-0.289，p=0.011）和警觉注意力测试（β=-0.688，p<0.001），周末恢复性睡眠的两个晚上并不能恢复这些测试的准确性。尽管偶尔违反研究协议在白天小睡，晚上在生物钟峰值附近进行测试，并在 14:00 之前摄入咖啡因，但认知和主观能力下降仍在发生。感觉运动速度、空间学习和记忆、工作记忆、抽象和心理灵活性、情绪识别、抽象推理、认知吞吐量和风险决策没有受到睡眠债务的显著影响。这些发现加上对幸福感和健康感的适度较低主观评价，强调了在特定认知领域的表现和在操作相关环境中的主观幸福感方面，充足睡眠的重要性，无论是急性还是慢性的。
