Electrodermal activity during total sleep deprivation and its relationship with other activation and performance measures.
The present study analyses the variations of the skin resistance level (SRL) during 48 h of total sleep deprivation (TSD) and its relationship to body temperature, self-informed sleepiness in the Stanford Sleepiness Scale (SSS), and reaction time (RT). All of the variables were evaluated every 2 h except for the SSS, which was evaluated every hour. A total of 30 healthy subjects (15 men and 15 women) from 18 to 24 years old participated in the experiment. Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with TSD days and time-of-day as factors showed a substantial increase of SRL, SSS, and RT, and a decrease in body temperature marked by strong circadian oscillations. The interaction between day by time-of-day was only significant for RT. Furthermore, Pearson's correlations showed that the increase of SRL is associated to the decrease in temperature (mean r=-0.511), the increase of SSS (mean r=0.509), and the deterioration of RT (mean r=0.425). The results support previous TSD reports and demonstrate the sensitivity of SRL to TSD. The non-invasive character of SRL, its simplicity, and its relationships with other activation parameters, widely validated by previous literature, convert SRL into an interesting and useful measure in this field.
Miró
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Department of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatment, Sleep Study Unit, School of Psychology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain. emiro@platon.ugr.es
Cano-Lozano
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MC
Buela-Casal
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D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001831:Body Temperature / Q000502:physiology; D006970:Disorders of Excessive Somnolence / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology; D005260:Female; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*