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Citation
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Vidafar P, Gooley JJ, Burns AC, Rajaratnam SMW, Rueger M, Van Reen E, Czeisler CA, Lockley SW, Cain SW. Sleep 2018; 41(8): ePub. |
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Affiliation
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Division of Sleep Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. |
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Abstract
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STUDY OBJECTIVES: Investigate sex differences in the effect of sleep deprivation on performance, accounting for menstrual phase in women.
METHODS: We examined alertness data from 124 healthy women and men (40 women, 84 men; aged 18 - 30 years) who maintained wakefulness for at least 30 hours in a laboratory setting using a constant routine protocol.
OBJECTIVE alertness was assessed every two hours using a 10-minute Psychomotor Vigilance Task. Subjective alertness was assessed every hour via the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale.
RESULTS: Women in the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle demonstrated the poorest level of performance. This poor performance was most pronounced at times corresponding to the typical sleep episode, demonstrating a window of vulnerability at night during this menstrual phase. At 24 hours awake, over 60% of their responses were lapses >500ms and over a third of their responses were longer lapses of at least 3s in duration. Women in the luteal phase, however, were relatively protected from alertness failure, performing similar or better than both follicular phase women and men.
CONCLUSIONS: These results have important implications for education and intervention programs for shift workers, specifically during times of vulnerability to attentional failure that increase risk of injury.
Language: en |