Fighting Sleep at Night: Brain Correlates and Vulnerability to Sleep Loss.
OBJECTIVE
Even though wakefulness at night leads to profound performance deterioration and is regularly experienced by shift workers, its cerebral correlates remain virtually unexplored.


METHODS
We assessed brain activity in young healthy adults during a vigilant attention task under high and low sleep pressure during night-time, coinciding with strongest circadian sleep drive. We examined sleep-loss-related attentional vulnerability by considering a PERIOD3 polymorphism presumably impacting on sleep homeostasis.


RESULTS
Our results link higher sleep-loss-related attentional vulnerability to cortical and subcortical deactivation patterns during slow reaction times (i.e., suboptimal vigilant attention). Concomitantly, thalamic regions were progressively less recruited with time-on-task and functionally less connected to task-related and arousal-promoting brain regions in those volunteers showing higher attentional instability in their behavior. The data further suggest that the latter is linked to shifts into a task-inactive default-mode network in between task-relevant stimulus occurrence.


CONCLUSIONS
We provide a multifaceted view on cerebral correlates of sleep loss at night and propose that genetic predisposition entails differential cerebral coping mechanisms, potentially compromising adequate performance during night work.
Center for Chronobiology, Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.|Transfaculty Research Platform Molecular and Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Micheline
M
Maire
Center for Chronobiology, Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.|Transfaculty Research Platform Molecular and Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Carolin Franziska
CF
Reichert
Center for Chronobiology, Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.|Transfaculty Research Platform Molecular and Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Virginie
V
Gabel
Center for Chronobiology, Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.|Transfaculty Research Platform Molecular and Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Antoine U
AU
Viola
Cyclotron Research Center, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium.
Christophe
C
Phillips
Center for Chronobiology, Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.|Transfaculty Research Platform Molecular and Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Julia
J
Krebs
MRC-Department, MPI for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany.|Department of Biomedical Magnetic Resonance, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Klaus
K
Scheffler
Department of Medical Radiology, MR-Physics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Markus
M
Klarhöfer
Respiratory Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Werner
W
Strobel
Center for Chronobiology, Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.|Transfaculty Research Platform Molecular and Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Christian
C
Cajochen
Center for Chronobiology, Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.|Transfaculty Research Platform Molecular and Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Christina
C
Schmidt
D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001933:Brain Stem / Q000503:physiopathology; D002940:Circadian Rhythm / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D059907:Functional Neuroimaging; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000503:physiopathology; D056950:Period Circadian Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000235:genetics* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D013788:Thalamus / Q000503:physiopathology; D055815:Young Adult
C512644:PER3 protein, human; D056950:Period Circadian Proteins