0337 Association Between Free-living Sleep and Memory and Attention in Healthy Adolescents

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Sleep is important for people of all ages, especially children during development. However, adolescents often sleep less than the recommended eight hours per night. Clinical trials have found that even partial sleep deprivation- shorter than the recommended duration- can reduce cognitive function in adolescents. The association between objectively measured free-living sleep and cognition function in adolescents has not been studied. Methods Free-living sleep duration and sleep efficiency were measured over one week with wrist actigraphy in 199 healthy normal adolescents (140 girls, mean±SD, 17.7±0.3 years). The day after the sleep measurement concluded, sustained attention was assessed with a validated Posner cue-target task, and working memory was measured with an n-back task. Associations between sleep measures and response times during attention and memory tasks were explored with multiple linear regression adjusted for task accuracy. Results Over the entire week, participants’ average sleep duration was 6.2±0.7 h/night and average sleep efficiency was 88±4.4% and averages for sleep the night prior to the cognitive testing were similar. Response times on memory (1-back: 420.6±73.9, 2-back: 522.6±101.9, and 3-back: 551.8±137.2 msec) and attention tasks (valid cue: 309±31.2, invalid cue: 365.8±36, and no cue: 393.6±38.9 msec) were similar to previous reports and not associated with average weekly sleep measures. Sleep duration of the night before cognitive testing was negatively associated with response times for the most challenging memory task (3-back; p=0.02). However, sleep measures of the night before did not correlate with any of the attention task scores. Conclusion Our data suggests that performance on difficult memory tasks may be negatively impacted by shorter free-living sleep durations the night prior to testing, even in healthy adolescents who average less than the recommended amount of sleep. Future studies should explore whether recovery sleep or other improvements in sleep habit might mitigate such effects on memory. Support The Eimskip University of Iceland Fund, Icelandic Centre for Research, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.