Acute Influence Of Sleep Restriction On Healthy Adults’ Sleep Architecture, Conflict Resolution And Interference Effect

Objective:Although sleep is very important, people in modern society sleep shorter andshorter, which is described as sleep restriction in medical research. Researches on acuteinfluence of sleep restriction are few. The paper is designed to investigate whether acutesleep restriction could influence the healthy adults’ sleep architecture and ability ofconflict resolution and interference effect.Methods:12healty adults(age,28.7±5.8years; education17.8±2.9years) including6menand6women participated in the study. Normal sleep time was8hours in a day from11:00p.m. to7:00a.m and sleep restriction was from1:00a.m. to6:00a.m, allowingonly5hours in a day. Polysomnogram and ERPs were undertaken to probe whathappened.1. As for sleep architecture, parameters including NREM2percentage,SWSpercentage,NREM percentage,REM percentage, lantency of REM were recorded usingPSG.2. As for the ability of control conflict and interference, accuracy, reaction time,N200and P300were collected through ERPs test. In our study, we employed animproved version of Eriksen flanker, which is widely undertaken in studies of resolvingconflicts. It includes four conditions: target-alone condition, congruent condition,neutral condition, incongruent condition. There are two kinds of interferences whichexist on perceptual level or response level. Difference between none stimuli and neutralstimuli means perceptual level interference. Difference of neutral and incongruent onesmeans perceptual level interference.Results:1. After acute sleep restriction, NREM2%decreased significantly; On the otherhand, SWS%increased obviously; NREM%and REM%have no differences;Thelantency of REM does not become shorter. 2. As for ERPs, the acute effect of sleep restriction included: decreased accuracyrate, increased reaction time, smaller N200amplitude. Perceptual level or response levelinterference was found in accuracy rate, reaction time. Decreased ability on conflict andinterference control could be detected through accuracy rate and N200lantencysignificantly, P300amplitude moderately.Conclusion:Acute sleep restriction of5h only for one day could modify the healthy adults’sleep architecture and could decrease their ability on conflict and interference control.Accuracy rate, reaction time and N200of ERPs might be better indicators for tinydecline on cognition caused by insufficient sleep.