Interindividual differences in neurobehavioral performance in response to increasing homeostatic sleep pressure

Abstract

Neurobehavioral function deteriorates with increasing homeostatic sleep pressure during wakefulness. It has been claimed that some individuals exhibit a quicker rate of such deterioration than others, thus being more vulnerable than others to the detrimental impact of increasing homeostatic sleep pressure. Evidence supporting the claim, however, has been limited by methodological issues. To overcome these limitations, the current study used a 12-calendar-day, 28-h forced desynchrony (FD) protocol (sleep:- wake period=1:2) to study individual differences in the rate of change in neurobehavioral performance with increasing homeostatic sleep pressure. Neurobehavioral performance was assessed with a psychomotor vigilance task and a serial addition subtraction task. A significant performance decline on both tasks was revealed within as short as 17 h of wakefulness. The rates of decline of individual performance trajectories were, however, not different from the group average rate. This suggests that individuals are not differentially vulnerable to the detrimental impact of increasing homeostatic sleep pressure.