title: Psychomotor vigilance task performance during and following chronic sleep restriction in rats.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Chronic sleep restriction (CSR) impairs sustained attention in humans, as commonly assessed with the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT). To further investigate the mechanisms underlying performance deficits during CSR, we examined the effect of CSR on performance on a rat version of PVT (rPVT).
  
  
  METHODS
  Adult male rats were trained on a rPVT that required them to press a bar when they detected irregularly presented, brief light stimuli, and were then tested during CSR. CSR consisted of 100 or 148 h of continuous cycles of 3-h sleep deprivation (using slowly rotating wheels) alternating with a 1-h sleep opportunity (3/1 protocol).
  
  
  RESULTS
  After 28 h of CSR, the latency of correct responses and the percentages of lapses and omissions increased, whereas the percentage of correct responses decreased. Over 52-148 h of CSR, all performance measures showed partial or nearly complete recovery, and were at baseline levels on the first or second day after CSR. There were large interindividual differences in the magnitude of performance impairment during CSR, suggesting differential vulnerability to the effects of sleep loss. Wheel-running controls showed no changes in performance.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A 28-h period of the 3/1 chronic sleep restriction (CSR) protocol disrupted performance on a sustained attention task in rats, as sleep deprivation does in humans. Performance improved after longer periods of CSR, suggesting allostatic adaptation, contrary to some reports of progressive deterioration in psychomotor vigilance task performance during CSR in humans. However, as observed in humans, there were individual differences among rats in the vulnerability of their attention performance to CSR.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Medical Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
authors.forename: Samuel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Deurveilher
authors.affiliation: Departments of Medical Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
authors.forename: Jacquelyn E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Bush
authors.affiliation: Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.|Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.|Pharmacology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rusak
authors.affiliation: Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.|Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.|Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
authors.forename: Gail A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Eskes
authors.affiliation: Departments of Medical Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.|Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.|Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
authors.forename: Kazue
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Semba
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D023421:Models, Animal; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013997:Time Factors; D014851:Wakefulness
keywords: PVT; individual differences; neurobehavioral impairment; recovery; sleep deprivation; sustained attention; vigilance