Sleep deprivation

Introduction

Sleep deprivation, a condition resulting from inadequate sleep, has significant social, financial, and health-related consequences. It affects cognitive performance, emotional stability, and physical health, leading to a range of detrimental effects on the human body and mind.

Key Insights

Cognitive Impairment:
- Sleep deprivation impairs cognitive functions such as psychomotor and cognitive speed, vigilant and executive attention, working memory, and higher cognitive abilities .
- Chronic sleep restriction leads to cumulative cognitive deficits over time, often without the individual's full awareness .
- Functional neuroimaging shows that sleep deprivation causes distributed changes in brain regions, including frontal and parietal control areas, secondary sensory processing areas, and thalamic areas .
Emotional and Affective Changes:
- Sleep deprivation results in less positive affect and increased anxiety, particularly during stress-inducing tasks.
- Mood is more affected by sleep deprivation than cognitive or motor performance.
Performance and Vigilant Attention:
- Sleep deprivation leads to overall slowing of responses, increased propensity for lengthy lapses, and errors of commission.
- The psychomotor vigilance test (PVT) is highly sensitive to sleep deprivation, revealing the interplay of top-down and bottom-up attention in producing unstable behavior patterns.
Health Risks:
- Sleep deprivation increases the risk of stroke, obesity, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, and mortality .
- It alters autonomic nervous system functions, increases oxidative stress, and accelerates atherosclerosis, linking it to cardiovascular and metabolic disorders.
Neurobiological and Physiological Stress:
- Sleep deprivation acts as a stressor, contributing to allostatic load, which is the cumulative wear and tear on body systems.
- It increases appetite, energy expenditure, proinflammatory cytokines, blood pressure, evening cortisol levels, and insulin and blood glucose levels.
Individual Differences and Genetic Factors:
- There are robust individual differences in cognitive vulnerability to sleep loss, potentially involving genetic factors related to sleep homeostasis and circadian rhythms .
- High intraclass correlations in neurobehavioral responses to sleep loss suggest phenotypic differences, possibly with genetic components.

Conclusion

Sleep deprivation has profound effects on cognitive performance, emotional stability, and physical health. It impairs various cognitive functions, increases emotional instability, and poses significant health risks. The condition acts as a neurobiological and physiological stressor, contributing to allostatic load and long-term health consequences. Individual differences in vulnerability to sleep loss may be influenced by genetic factors, highlighting the need for personalized approaches to managing sleep deprivation.

Summary

Introduction

Key Insights

Conclusion

Sources and full results

Neurocognitive Consequences of Sleep Deprivation

Sleep deprivation impairs cognitive performance, leading to cognitive deficits in psychomotor and executive functions, working memory, and higher cognitive abilities, with genetic factors playing a role in vulnerability.

Neurocognitive consequences of sleep deprivation.

Sleep deprivation impairs cognitive performance, with genetic factors potentially playing a role in cognitive vulnerability to sleep loss.

Effects of sleep deprivation on performance: a meta-analysis.

Sleep deprivation significantly impairs human functioning, with mood being more affected than cognitive or motor performance, and partial sleep deprivation having a more profound effect on functioning than long-term or short-term sleep deprivation.

The sleep-deprived human brain

Sleep deprivation negatively impacts attention, working memory, positive and negative emotions, and hippocampal learning, with implications for clinical conditions associated with sleep disruption.

Sleep Deprivation and Vigilant Attention

Sleep deprivation impairs human reaction times, leading to slower responses, increased lapses, and increased errors in cognitive tasks.

Sleep deprivation in adolescents and adults: changes in affect.

Sleep deprivation leads to less positive affect and increased anxiety in adolescents and adults, regardless of their developmental stage.

What Is Sleep Deprivation?

Sleep deprivation leads to decreased performance, alertness, and deterioration in health, increasing the risk of stroke, obesity, diabetes, cancer, cognitive deficits, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, and mortality.

Sleep, sleep deprivation, autonomic nervous system and cardiovascular diseases

Sleep deprivation, caused by lifestyle habits or sleep disorders, increases the risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.

Sleep deprivation as a neurobiologic and physiologic stressor: Allostasis and allostatic load.

Chronic sleep deprivation impairs brain functions and contributes to allostatic load, leading to cognitive problems and increased risk of diseases.

Sleep deprivation and neurobehavioral dynamics

Chronic sleep restriction leads to long-term neuromodulatory changes in brain physiology, potentially requiring longer recovery than acute sleep loss.

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