Impaired Vigilant Attention Partly Accounts for Inhibition Control Deficits After Total Sleep Deprivation and Partial Sleep Restriction.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Controlled laboratory experimental study with separate condition groups (randomization not specified)
PubMed 34557048 · doi:10.2147/NSS.S314769
What was done
Researchers evaluated the relationship between vigilant attention and inhibition control across three experimental groups: one night of total sleep deprivation (TSD, n = 49), two nights of partial sleep restriction to 6 hours time in bed per night (PSR, n = 16), and a control group without sleep loss (n = 16). Throughout waking periods, participants completed the Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT) for vigilant attention and the Go/No-Go task for inhibition control.
What was found
Both TSD and PSR led to significantly slower reaction times (RT) and increased lapses on the PVT, as well as slower Go RT and increased omission errors on the Go/No-Go task. PVT impairments accounted for 18.0% of the change in Go RT and 12.4% of the change in omission errors following TSD. Following PSR, PVT impairments accounted for 23.7% of the change in Go RT and 20.3% of the change in omission errors.
Why it matters
These findings show that while lapses in vigilant attention contribute to poor inhibitory control after sleep loss, the majority of the deficit remains unexplained by basic vigilance degradation alone.
Limits
The abstract does not state whether participants were randomized to conditions. Sample sizes in the control and PSR arms were small (n = 16 each). Specific demographics, commission error rates, and duration of recovery were not reported.
Cited by
- supports When sleep is impaired by deprivation or fragmentation, vigilant attention is the first cognitive domain to deteriorate.