Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China.
Center for Sleep Research, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health & Cognitive Science, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China.
Cereb Cortex. 2023 Feb 7;33(4):1140-1154. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhac126.
Sleep deprivation strongly deteriorates the stability of vigilant maintenance. In previous neuroimaging studies of large-scale networks, neural variations in the resting state after sleep deprivation have been well documented, highlighting that large-scale networks implement efficient cognitive functions and attention regulation in a spatially hierarchical organization. However, alterations of neural networks during cognitive tasks have rarely been investigated.
The present study used a within-participant design of 35 healthy right-handed adults and used task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the neural mechanism of attentional decline after sleep deprivation from the perspective of rich-club architecture during a psychomotor vigilance task.
We found that a significant decline in the hub disruption index was related to impaired vigilance due to sleep loss. The hierarchical rich-club architectures were reconstructed after sleep deprivation, especially in the default mode network and sensorimotor network. Notably, the relatively fast alert response compensation was correlated with the feeder organizational hierarchy that connects core (rich-club) and peripheral nodes.
Our findings provide novel insights into understanding the relationship of alterations in vigilance and the hierarchical architectures of the human brain after sleep deprivation, emphasizing the significance of optimal collaboration between different functional hierarchies for regular attention maintenance.
睡眠剥夺会严重降低警觉性维持的稳定性。在之前关于睡眠剥夺后静息状态下大尺度网络的神经影像学研究中，已经充分记录了神经变化，突出了大尺度网络在空间层次结构中实现高效认知功能和注意力调节的作用。然而，在认知任务期间神经网络的变化很少被研究。
本研究采用 35 名健康右利手成年人的被试内设计，使用基于任务的功能磁共振成像技术，从心理运动警觉任务中的丰富俱乐部架构的角度，研究了睡眠剥夺后注意力下降的神经机制。
我们发现，由于睡眠不足导致警觉性下降，与枢纽破坏指数的显著下降有关。睡眠剥夺后重建了分层的丰富俱乐部架构，特别是在默认模式网络和感觉运动网络中。值得注意的是，相对较快的警报反应补偿与连接核心（丰富俱乐部）和外围节点的馈线组织层次结构相关。
我们的研究结果为理解睡眠剥夺后警觉性变化和人类大脑的分层结构之间的关系提供了新的视角，强调了不同功能层次之间最佳协作对于常规注意力维持的重要性。
