Impact of Sleep Fragmentation on Cognition and Fatigue

Oumaïma Benkirane, Bérénice Delwiche, Olivier Mairesse and Philippe Peigneux ()
Additional contact information
Oumaïma Benkirane: UR2NF—Neuropsychology and Functional Neuroimaging Research Unit, at CRCN—Centre for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences and UNI—ULB Neuroscience Institute, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 1050 Brussels, Belgium
Bérénice Delwiche: Brugmann University Hospital, Sleep Laboratory & Unit for Chronobiology U78, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 1050 Brussels, Belgium
Olivier Mairesse: Brugmann University Hospital, Sleep Laboratory & Unit for Chronobiology U78, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 1050 Brussels, Belgium
Philippe Peigneux: UR2NF—Neuropsychology and Functional Neuroimaging Research Unit, at CRCN—Centre for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences and UNI—ULB Neuroscience Institute, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 1050 Brussels, Belgium

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 23, 1-20

Abstract: Sleep continuity and efficacy are essential for optimal cognitive functions. How sleep fragmentation (SF) impairs cognitive functioning, and especially cognitive fatigue (CF), remains elusive. We investigated the impact of induced SF on CF through the TloadDback task, measuring interindividual variability in working memory capacity. Sixteen participants underwent an adaptation polysomnography night and three consecutive nights, once in a SF condition induced by non-awakening auditory stimulations, once under restorative sleep (RS) condition, counterbalanced within-subject. In both conditions, participants were administered memory, vigilance, inhibition and verbal fluency testing, and for CF the TloadDback, as well as sleep questionnaires and fatigue and sleepiness visual analog scales were administered. Subjective fatigue increased and sleep architecture was altered after SF (reduced sleep efficiency, percentage of N3 and REM, number of NREM and REM phases) despite similar total sleep time. At the behavioral level, only inhibition deteriorated after SF, and CF similarly evolved in RS and SF conditions. In line with prior research, we show that SF disrupts sleep architecture and exerts a deleterious impact on subjective fatigue and inhibition. However, young healthy participants appear able to compensate for CF induced by three consecutive SF nights. Further studies should investigate SF effects in extended and/or pathological disruption settings.

Keywords: sleep fragmentation; cognitive fatigue; cognitive functions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/15485/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/15485/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:23:p:15485-:d:980821

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().