0199 Effects of acute sleep deprivation on cognitive performance in depressed individuals

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Acute sleep deprivation (SD) is an effective, rapid antidepressant treatment. However, SD has adverse effects on cognitive performance. The effects of SD on cognitive performance in depression remain underexplored. This study investigated relationships between depression and performance on Cognition – a neurocognitive battery of 10 tests that cover a range of cognitive domains – during acute SD. Methods Thirty-six individuals with current depression (69.4% female; 33±9.5 yrs) and 10 euthymic controls (40% female; 35±9.5 yrs) underwent a baseline night of sleep followed by 36 hours SD in the laboratory. Participants completed the Cognition battery twice after each protocol night. Each of the 10 Cognition tests has two separate metrics of performance: speed and accuracy. Multivariable linear regressions were used to assess effects of depression status, age, and gender on each performance metric at baseline. Mixed effects models were used to assess effects of depression status, sleep deprivation, and their interaction on performance metrics. All models included a random effect over participants and were adjusted for age, gender, and time of day. Results At baseline, depressed individuals were significantly faster than controls on three tests of working memory (β=-72.6; p=0.03), spatial orientation (β=-2944.7; p=0.01), and emotion recognition (β=-537.5; p=0.005) respectively, although these effects did not survive correction for multiple comparisons. Mixed effects model results revealed a significant effect of depression status on the speed metric from the spatial orientation test, whereby depressed individuals were faster across the protocol (β=-2579.6; p=0.04) and a significant interaction effect between depression status and study day on the speed metric from a risk-taking behavior test, whereby depressed individuals were slower after SD (β=480.9, p=0.01); neither effect survived correction for multiple comparisons. However, sleep deprivation was significantly associated with reductions in performance in models for 10 out of 20 metrics (all adjusted ps < 0.05). Conclusion These results suggest that currently depressed individuals exhibit the same decrements in cognitive performance after acute SD as non-depressed individuals. Future analyses will examine whether baseline depression severity predicts cognitive performance and whether differences in performance exist between SD responders versus non-responders. Support (if any) This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH107571).