Interindividual differences in attentional vulnerability moderate cognitive performance during sleep restriction and subsequent recovery in healthy young men

Gina Marie Mathew,Nicole G Nahmod,Anne-Marie Chang,Margeaux M Schade,Stephen M Strayer,Orfeu M Buxton,Kelly M Ness

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-95884-w

Abstract

We investigated whether interindividual attentional vulnerability moderates performance on domain-specific cognitive tasks during sleep restriction (SR) and subsequent recovery sleep. Fifteen healthy men (M ± SD, 22.3 ± 2.8 years) were exposed to three nights of baseline, five nights of 5-h time in bed SR, and two nights of recovery sleep. Participants completed tasks assessing working memory, visuospatial processing, and processing speed approximately every two hours during wake. Analyses examined performance across SR and recovery (linear predictor day or quadratic predictor day2) moderated by attentional vulnerability per participant (difference between mean psychomotor vigilance task lapses after the fifth SR night versus the last baseline night). For significant interactions between day/day2 and vulnerability, we investigated the effect of day/day2 at 1 SD below (less vulnerable level) and above (more vulnerable level) the mean of attentional vulnerability (N = 15 in all analyses). Working memory accuracy and speed on the Fractal 2-Back and visuospatial processing speed and efficiency on the Line Orientation Task improved across the entire study at the less vulnerable level (mean − 1SD) but not the more vulnerable level (mean + 1SD). Therefore, vulnerability to attentional lapses after SR is a marker of susceptibility to working memory and visuospatial processing impairment during SR and subsequent recovery.

Highlights

We investigated whether interindividual attentional vulnerability moderates performance on domain-specific cognitive tasks during sleep restriction (SR) and subsequent recovery sleep
We investigated whether attentional vulnerability during sleep restriction would moderate the impact of sleep restriction and subsequent recovery sleep on working memory, visuospatial processing, and processing speed performance
The current study examined whether interindividual vulnerability to the attentional effects of sleep restriction, defined as the change in lapses of attention per participant from baseline sleep repletion to sleep restriction, moderated the impact of sleep restriction and subsequent recovery sleep on working memory, visuospatial processing, and processing speed

Summary

Introduction

We investigated whether interindividual attentional vulnerability moderates performance on domain-specific cognitive tasks during sleep restriction (SR) and subsequent recovery sleep. One study in healthy young men found that some participants exhibited no errors and faster RT on a verbal working memory task after 30 h of total sleep deprivation, whereas others exhibited slower RT and increased e rrors[31]. The authors posited that deficits in sustained attention may represent the most parsimonious explanation for deficits in more complex cognitive domains during sleep loss This hypothesis is supported by another meta-analysis that found similar patterns of brain activation (reduced parahippocampal gyrus, bilateral insula, right prefrontal cortex, medial frontal gyrus, and bilateral intraparietal sulcus activity; increased thalamic activity) during total sleep deprivation across both simple and complex attention tasks[35]

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