title: Postural control, attention and sleep deprivation.
abstract: We investigated the effect of sleep deprivation on postural control during a simple reaction time task (SRT), during a task requiring the intermittent inhibition of a reaction (IRT), and in the absence of a concurrent information processing task. Postural sway, i.e. changes in center of pressure on a force platform, was recorded in three increasingly difficult standing conditions (fixed platform, sway-referenced platform and sway-referenced platform with sway-referenced visual scene) during the three information-processing task conditions. Five healthy subjects performed the tasks either after normal sleep or following 24 h of sustained wakefulness. As hypothesized, sleep deprivation significantly increased postural sway only in the IRT condition. Within the IRT condition, sleep deprivation significantly increased sway across all postural conditions.
authors.affiliation: School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schlesinger
authors.forename: M S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Redfern
authors.forename: R E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Dahl
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Jennings
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology; D011187:Posture / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012016:Reference Values; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000502:physiology*