Predicting and mitigating fatigue effects due to sleep deprivation: A review

Abstract

The deleterious effects of insufficient sleep have been well-established in the literature and can lead to a wide range of adverse health outcomes. Some of the most replicated findings demonstrate significant declines in cognitive functions such as vigilance and executive attention, psychomotor and cognitive speed, and working memory. Consequently, these decrements often lead individuals who are in a fatigued state to engage in substandard performance on everyday tasks. In the interest of curtailing these effects, prior work has attempted to identify mechanisms that predict fatigue onset and develop techniques to mitigate its negative consequences. Nonetheless, these results are often confounded by variables such as an individual’s resistance to fatigue, sleep history, and unclear distinctions about whether certain performance decrements are present due to fatigue or due to other confounding factors. Similar areas of research have provided approaches to produce models for the prediction of cognitive performance decrements due to fatigue through the use of multi-modal recording and analysis of fatigue-related responses. Namely, gathering and combining response information from multiple sources (i.e., physiological and behavioral) at multiple timescales may provide a more comprehensive representation of what constitutes fatigue onset in the individual. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to discuss the relevant literature on the topic of fatigue-related performance effects with a special emphasis on a variety of physiological and behavioral response variables that have shown to be sensitive to changes in fatigue. Furthermore, an increasing reliance on sleep loss, meant to assist in meeting the demands of modern society, has led to an upsurge in the relevance of identifying dependable countermeasures for fatigued states. As such, we will also review methods for the mitigation of performance effects due to fatigue and discuss their usefulness in regulating these effects. In sum, this review aims to inspire future work that will create opportunities to detect fatigue and mitigate its effects prior to the onset of cognitive impairments.

Image discrimination reversal learning is impaired by sleep deprivation in rats: Cognitive rigidity or fatigue?

“…Both variables indicate exacerbated fatigue in SD rats during the initial session of the REV phase with half the trials and three times the latency to respond. This is consistent with previous reports indicating the negative effects SD on vigilance and attention ( Banks and Dinges, 2007 ; Goel et al, 2009 ; Killgore, 2010 ; Kayser et al, 2022 ).…”

“…Despite these difficulties a sustained and active area of research is directed at elucidating the distinct effects of SD on different aspects of cognition. There is a large literature demonstrating evidence that sleep loss incurs temporary deficits in vigilance (measured by the psychomotor vigilance test) ( Banks and Dinges, 2007 ; Killgore, 2010 ; Kayser et al, 2022 ), attention ( Goel et al, 2009 ; Killgore, 2010 ; Kayser et al, 2022 ), emotional functioning ( Killgore, 2010 ; Kayser et al, 2022 ), mood ( Killgore, 2010 ; Kayser et al, 2022 ), and learning ( Goel et al, 2009 ; Killgore, 2010 ). There is also evidence of the effects of insufficient sleep on sensory perception ( Killgore, 2010 ; Zhou et al, 2022 ), appraisal ( Yoo et al, 2007a ; Killgore, 2010 ) and decision making ( Killgore, 2010 ; Kayser et al, 2022 ).…”

Psychomotor Performance after 30 h of Sleep Deprivation Combined with Exercise

“…In both groups, the U-shaped pattern of MCRT was confirmed, which is in agreement with most of the previous data [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ]. The lack of differences in MCRT and the shortest MCRT between groups is in contrast to what would be expected based on the results of studies on SD alone, which almost unanimously report the detrimental effect of the lack of sleep on psychomotor performance and other aspects of the cognitive functions as well [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 19 ]. This could be explained by what has been already found at rest, namely the higher arousal induced by prolonged exercise had balanced its decrease produced by the lack of sleep.…”

“…The novel aspect of the present study reveals the psychomotor performance measured during exercise in subjects submitted to 30 h of sleep deprivation combined with moderate intensity prolonged exercise (SDE). Interestingly, psychomotor performance measured at rest in the SDE trial was improved, most probably because the additional stimulation induced by prolonged exercise annihilated the usually observed detrimental effect of sleep deprivation [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 19 ]. Several factors influenced by exercise also affect the brain and might have led to such a result.…”

“…Sleep deprivation (SD) entails a broad spectrum of negative physiological and psychological outcomes, with significant declines in psychomotor performance, cognition, vigilance and attention [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]. Few studies found no adverse effects of SD on psychomotor performance [ 6 , 7 ].…”