122 Different Duration Psychomotor Vigilance Tests Show Robust Stable Relationships Across Sleep Loss That Deteriorate in Recovery

Abstract

Abstract Introduction The Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT), a behavioral attention measure widely used to capture sleep loss deficits, is available in 10-minute (PVT10) and 3-minute (PVT3) versions. The PVT3 is a briefer and presumably comparable assessment to the more commonly used PVT10 yet the relationship between the measures from the two versions across specific time points and in recovery after sleep loss has not been investigated. Repeated measures correlation (rmcorr) evaluated within-individual associations between measures on the PVT10 and PVT3 throughout a highly controlled sleep deprivation study. Methods Forty-one healthy adults (ages 21-49; mean±SD, 33.9±8.9y; 18 females) participated in a 13-night experiment consisting of 2 baseline nights (10h-12h time in bed, TIB) followed by 5 sleep restriction (SR1-5) nights (4h TIB), 4 recovery nights (R1-R4; 12h TIB), and 36h total sleep deprivation (TSD). A neurobehavioral test battery, including the PVT10 and PVT3 was completed every 2h during wakefulness. Rmcorr compared PVT10 and PVT3 lapses (reaction time [RT] >355ms [PVT3] or >500ms [PVT10]) and response speed (1/RT) by examining correlations by day (e.g., baseline day 2) and by time point (e.g., 1000h-2000h). Rmcorr ranges were as follows: 0.1-0.3, small; 0.3-0.5, moderate; 0.5-0.7, large; 0.7-0.9, very large. Results All time point correlations (1000h-2000h) were significant (moderate to large for lapses; large to very large for 1/RT). Lapses demonstrated large correlations during R1, moderate correlations during SR1-SR5 and TSD, and small correlations during R2 and R4, and showed no significant correlations during baseline or R3. 1/RT correlations were large for SR1-SR4 and TSD, moderate for SR5 and R1-R4, and small for baseline. Conclusion The various PVT relationships were consistently strong at specific times of day throughout the study. In addition, higher correlations observed for 1/RT relative to lapses and during SR and TSD relative to baseline and recovery suggest that the PVT10 and PVT3 are most similar and best follow performance when most individuals are experiencing behavioral attention deficits during sleep loss. Both measures track SR and TSD performance well, with 1/RT presenting as more comparable between the PVT10 and PVT3. Support (if any) ONR Award N00014-11-1-0361; NIH UL1TR000003; NASA NNX14AN49G and 80NSSC20K0243; NIHR01DK117488