Continued Focus on Sleep Deprivation Effects on Health Necessary Editorial (original) (raw)

Sleep Deprivation and Brain Function

Specific memory defects and brain function abnormalities are linked to sleep deprivation-a major issue that many experience daily. For instance, inadequate sleep impairs the hippocampus, the major brain structure that is responsible in learning and memory formation. Studies found that there is a great link between sleep and academic performance and that sleep deprivation has a negative influence in academic performance and learning. Receiving enough sleep does not only help the brain to function properly, but also has a positive impact on our lifespan and is imperative in maintaining a good health.

Neurobiological Consequences of Sleep Deprivation

Current Neuropharmacology, 2013

Although the physiological function of sleep is not completely understood, it is well documented that it contributes significantly to the process of learning and memory. Ample evidence suggests that adequate sleep is essential for fostering connections among neuronal networks for memory consolidation in the hippocampus. Sleep deprivation studies are extremely valuable in understanding why we sleep and what are the consequences of sleep loss. Experimental sleep deprivation in animals allows us to gain insight into the mechanism of sleep at levels not possible to study in human subjects. Many useful approaches have been utilized to evaluate the effect of sleep loss on cognitive function, each with relative advantages and disadvantages. In this review we discuss sleep and the detrimental effects of sleep deprivation mostly in experimental animals. The negative effects of sleep deprivation on various aspects of brain function including learning and memory, synaptic plasticity and the state of cognition-related signaling molecules are discussed.

Neurocognitive Consequences of Sleep Deprivation - SIN- 2009

Sleep deprivation is associated with considerable social, financial, and healthrelated costs, in large measure because it produces impaired cognitive performance due to increasing sleep propensity and instability of waking neurobehavioral functions. Cognitive functions particularly affected by sleep loss include psychomotor and cognitive speed, vigilant and executive attention, working memory, and higher cognitive abilities. Chronic sleep-restriction experiments-which model the kind of sleep loss experienced by many individuals with sleep fragmentation and premature sleep curtailment due to disorders and lifestyle-demonstrate that cognitive deficits accumulate to severe levels over time without full awareness by the affected individual. Functional neuroimaging has revealed that frequent and progressively longer cognitive lapses, which are a hallmark of sleep deprivation, involve distributed changes in brain regions including frontal and parietal control areas, secondary sensory processing areas, and thalamic areas. There are robust differences among individuals in the degree of their cognitive vulnerability to sleep loss that may involve differences in prefrontal and parietal cortices, and that may have a basis in genes regulating sleep homeostasis and circadian rhythms. Thus, cognitive deficits believed to be a function of the severity of clinical sleep disturbance may be a product of genetic alleles associated with differential cognitive vulnerability to sleep loss.

The Impact of Sleep Deprivation on the Brain

Acta Clinica Croatica, 2016

Each sleep phase is characterized by specifi c chemical, cellular and anatomic events of vital importance for normal neural functioning. Diff erent forms of sleep deprivation may lead to a decline of cognitive functions in individuals. Studies in this fi eld make a distinction between total sleep deprivation, chronic sleep restriction, and the situation of sleep disruption. Investigations covering the acute eff ects of sleep deprivation on the brain show that the discovered behavioral defi cits in most cases regenerate after two nights of complete sleep. However, some studies done on mice emphasize the possible chronic eff ects of long-term sleep deprivation or chronic restriction on the occurrence of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and dementia. In order to better understand the acute and chronic eff ects of sleep loss, the mechanisms of neural adaptation in the situations of insuffi cient sleep need to be further investigated. Future integrative research on the impact of sleep deprivation on neural functioning measured through the macro level of cognitive functions and the micro molecular and cell level could contribute to more accurate conclusions about the basic cellular mechanisms responsible for the detected behavioral defi cits occurring due to sleep deprivation.

Effects of acute and chronic sleep deprivation

ESRS European Sleep Medicine Textbook, 2014

Chronic sleep restriction and acute total sleep loss are highly prevalent in the modern ‘24/7 society’ and pose significant risks for quality of life, mental wellbeing, cognitive performance and physical health. The consequences of acute and chronic sleep deprivation have become a public health concern. Based on the catalogue of knowledge and skills for sleep medicine, this chapter focuses on the effects of sleep deprivation on emotional state, mood, cognition, physical health and immune functions. We review the effect sizes of these different consequences of lack of sleep and provide insights into possible neuroanatomical and (neuro) physiological underpinnings of how insufficient sleep could impact upon these health outcomes. A better understanding of these relationships is important, because the avoidance of short and inadequate sleep may be amenable to modification and help to save increasingly high social, financial and health-related costs for the affected individuals and for ...

Possible Mechanisms for Impairments to Learning, Memory, and Attention due to Sleep Deprivation

Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology, 2014

Results obtained from experimental and clinical studies to date provide evidence supporting the view that sleep disturbance degrades learning, memory, and attention, weakens higher-order cognitive process, influences decision-taking, and alters emotional status. Significant attention in clinical studies is now paid to investigations of the consequences of lack of sleep in chronic diseases. Neurophysiological experiments address the mechanisms of impairments induced by a complete lack (deprivation) of sleep or deprivation of only the paradoxical phase of sleep. A review of current neurobiological data identifying plastic rearrangements and changes in the state of the brain in sleep deprivation has been presented in [35]. Impairments to short-term memory induced by sleep deprivation has been suggested to result from impaired visual attention and/or visual processing [16]. It has previously been suggested that slow-wave sleep is important

Neurophysiological Effects of Sleep Deprivation in Healthy Adults, a Pilot Study

PLOS ONE, 2015

Total sleep deprivation (TSD) may induce fatigue, neurocognitive slowing and mood changes, which are partly compensated by stress regulating brain systems, resulting in altered dopamine and cortisol levels in order to stay awake if needed. These systems, however, have never been studied in concert. At baseline, after a regular night of sleep, and the next morning after TSD, 12 healthy subjects performed a semantic affective classification functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task, followed by a [ 11 C]raclopride positron emission tomography (PET) scan. Saliva cortisol levels were acquired at 7 time points during both days. Affective symptoms were measured using Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Spielberger State Trait Anxiety Index (STAI) and visual analogue scales. After TSD, perceived energy levels, concentration, and speed of thought decreased significantly, whereas mood did not. During fMRI, response speed decreased for neutral words and positive targets, and accuracy decreased trendwise for neutral words and for positive targets with a negative distracter. Following TSD, processing of positive words was associated with increased left dorsolateral prefrontal activation. Processing of emotional words in general was associated with increased insular activity, whereas contrasting positive vs. negative words showed subthreshold increased activation in the (para)hippocampal area. Cortisol secretion was significantly lower after TSD. Decreased voxel-by-voxel [ 11 C]raclopride binding potential (BP ND ) was observed in left caudate. TSD induces widespread cognitive, neurophysiologic and endocrine changes in healthy adults, characterized by reduced cognitive functioning, despite increased regional brain activity. The blunted HPA-axis response together with altered [ 11 C]raclopride binding in the basal ganglia indicate that sustained wakefulness requires involvement of additional adaptive biological systems.

Neurocognitive Consequences of Sleep Deprivation

Seminars in Neurology, 2005

Deficits in daytime performance due to sleep loss are experienced universally and associated with a significant social, financial, and human cost. Microsleeps, sleep attacks, and lapses in cognition increase with sleep loss as a function of state instability. Sleep deprivation studies repeatedly show a variable (negative) impact on mood, cognitive performance, and motor function due to an increasing sleep propensity and destabilization of the wake state. Specific neurocognitive domains including executive attention, working memory, and divergent higher cognitive functions are particularly vulnerable to sleep loss. In humans, functional metabolic and neurophysiological studies demonstrate that neural systems involved in executive function (i.e., prefrontal cortex) are more susceptible to sleep deprivation in some individuals than others. Recent chronic partial sleep deprivation experiments, which more closely replicate sleep loss in society, demonstrate that profound neurocognitive deficits accumulate over time in the face of subjective adaptation to the sensation of sleepiness. Sleep deprivation associated with disease-related sleep fragmentation (i.e., sleep apnea and restless legs syndrome) also results in neurocognitive performance decrements similar to those seen in sleep restriction studies. Performance deficits associated with sleep disorders are often viewed as a simple function of disease severity; however, recent experiments suggest that individual vulnerability to sleep loss may play a more critical role than previously thought.

Sleep Deprivation: Impact on Cognitive Performance

University of The People, 2023

This research paper was authored by Paula Alhola and Päivi Polo-Kantola, who investigated the impact of sleep disorders on a person's cognitive abilities, namely attention, working memory and decision-making. The study also explored the effects of partial sleep deprivation on cognition. Additionally, the research highlighted the recovery process from sleep deprivation, taking into account various factors such as gender, age, and social variables, which can influence the speed of recovery (Alhola & Polo-Kantola, 2007).

Effects of sleep deprivation on neural functioning: an integrative review

Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences, 2007

Sleep deprivation has a broad variety of effects on human performance and neural functioning that manifest themselves at different levels of description. On a macroscopic level, sleep deprivation mainly affects executive functions, especially in novel tasks. Macroscopic and mesoscopic effects of sleep deprivation on brain activity include reduced cortical responsiveness to incoming stimuli, reflecting reduced attention. On a microscopic level, sleep deprivation is associated with increased levels of adenosine, a neuromodulator that has a general inhibitory effect on neural activity. The inhibition of cholinergic nuclei appears particularly relevant, as the associated decrease in cortical acetylcholine seems to cause effects of sleep deprivation on macroscopic brain activity. In general, however, the relationships between the neural effects of sleep deprivation across observation scales are poorly understood and uncovering these relationships should be a primary target in future research.