Sleep deprivation/sleep restriction and shift work

Abstract

Dear members of the ESRS, Dear readers of JSR, This third issue of JSR 2019 has a focus on the topics of sleep deprivation, sleep restriction and shift work. Apart from this, a variety of other topics are included, such as CNS hypersomnias, sleep following experimental manipulations, sleep and cognitive decline, PLMS and cardiovascular disease. Furthermore, single articles deal with the issues of chronotype and mental health, sleep rhythmic movements and napping. Eight new publications deal with different aspects of sleep deprivation, sleep restriction and shift work. Sleep deprivation is still a major experimental strategy to elucidate the functions of sleep. Hennecke et al. (2018) present an interesting experimental study investigating 17 young healthy men before and after 58 hr of wakefulness and during 14 hr of recovery sleep. Their main finding from their data analysis refers to individual sleep structure during baseline sleep and during 14 hr of recovery sleep. They conclude that sleep stage distribution after 58 hr of wakefulness and during 14 hr of recovery sleep resembles that of the baseline night, thus underlining the stability of individual sleep structure. Another study by Peretti et al. (2018) looked at the impact of sleep on aesthetic perception and empathy. In this study sleep-deprived and non-sleep-deprived subjects were compared with respect to several parameters of aesthetic perception and empathy.From their data analysis the authors conclude that sleep duration might mediate the relationship between empathy and aesthetic perception in the sleep group, with a stronger mediation effect of sleep on the emotional empathy measures. Unfortunately, in the sleep-deprived group there was a lack of correlation among empathy, aesthetic perception and sleep variables, which did not allow the required mediation analysis. It is concluded from the study that an adequate sleep duration may play an important role in stabilizing or improving cognitive and emotional empathic capabilities and the ability to make correct aesthetic judgements.A study from Finland (Härmä et al., 2018) investigated whether shift work with or without night work might be a risk factor for fatigue and short or long sleep. The data analysis was based on a prospective cohort study with 4-and 6-year follow-ups, the so-called Finnish Public Sector study. The main analysis aimed to estimate risk ratios of whether continuous exposure to shift work or changes between shift and day work might be associated with short or long sleep over 24 hr and fatigue at work and during free days. The authors were able to show that continuous shift work with night shifts did correlate with increased fatigue during free days and long sleep after a 6-year follow-up period. Exposure to shift work without night shifts had a less pronounced effect on sleep duration and no effect on fatigue. The conclusion is that irregular shift work including night shifts might be a modifiable risk factor for long sleep and increased fatigue, probably reflecting a higher need for...