Abstract
Objective: Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant that can effectively alleviate brain fatigue and low cognitive efficiency induced by total sleep deprivation (TSD). Recent studies have demonstrated that caffeine can improve subjective attention and objective behavioral metrics, such as arousal level, reaction time, and memory efficiency. However, only a few studies have examined the electrophysiological changes caused by the caffeine in humans following sleep disturbance. In this study, an event-related potential (ERP) technique was employed to measure the behavioral, cognitive, and electrophysiological changes produced by caffeine administration after TSD.Methods: Sixteen healthy subjects within-subject design performed a visual Go/No-Go task with simultaneous electroencephalogram recording. Behavioral and ERP data were evaluated after 36 h of TSD, and the effects of ingestion of either 400 mg of caffeine or placebo were compared in a double-blind randomized design.Results: Compared with placebo administration, the Go hit rates were significantly enhanced in the caffeine condition. A simple effect analysis revealed that, compared with baseline, the Go-P2 amplitude was significantly enhanced after TSD in the caffeine consumption condition. A significant main effect of the drug was found on No-Go-P2, No-Go-N2 amplitude, and Go-P2 latency before and after TSD.Conclusion: Our findings indicate that caffeine administration has acute effects on improving the efficiency of individual automatic reactions and early cognitive processes. Caffeine was related to the preservation of an individual’s arousal level and accelerated response-related decisions, while subjects’ higher-level recognition had limited improvement with prolonged awareness.
Highlights
Sleep deprivation (SD) is common in the current society, with a prevalence of approximately 35% (Bandyopadhyay and Sigua, 2019)
A simple effect analysis showed no significant difference in the hit rates between placebo and caffeine conditions at baseline; there was a significantly increased hit rate with caffeine compared with placebo after total sleep deprivation (TSD) (p = 0.028)
By examining the effects of caffeine on different event-related potential (ERP) components, we found that the P2 ERP component in Go trials showed an increased differential wave in the TSD condition following caffeine administration compared to placebo
Summary
Sleep deprivation (SD) is common in the current society, with a prevalence of approximately 35% (Bandyopadhyay and Sigua, 2019). TSD is one of the main reasons for a low arousal level, reduced cognitive function, and increased reaction times, among other things. There has been a trend toward the use of caffeine (1,3,7-trimethylxanthine) to alleviate the effects of TSD and maintain arousal levels (Spaeth et al, 2014; Burrows et al, 2020). Caffeine acts in the brain as a non-specific potent inhibitor of the actions of A1 and A2 Adenosine receptors (Ribeiro and Sebastiao, 2010; Nehlig, 2016). It seems effective in improving alertness in situations of reduced arousal. Beaumont et al (2005) found that the action of caffeine both shortened response times and reduced the number of errors on psychomotor tests, which indicates that caffeine has a global action on information processing and divided attention management (Beaumont et al, 2005; Wilhelmus et al, 2017)
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