Gender and age differences in psychomotor vigilance performance under differential sleep pressure conditions
- PMID: 16386807
- DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2005.11.018
Gender and age differences in psychomotor vigilance performance under differential sleep pressure conditions
Abstract
The effects of sleep pressure and circadian phase on neurobehavioral function can be sensitively measured with the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT). We compared PVT performance in 16 young (8 men and 8 women, 20-31 years) and 16 elderly healthy subjects (8 men and 8 women, 57-74 years) during a 40-h sleep deprivation (SD, high sleep pressure) and a 40-h multiple nap protocol (NAP, low sleep pressure) under dim light and constant posture conditions in a balanced crossover design. Independent of age and sleep pressure conditions, women exhibited significantly slower reaction times (RTs) than men. This effect became more apparent with increasing time elapsed into both the 40-h NAP and SD protocol. However, women tended to have fewer premature key presses than men. Independent of gender, the elderly showed slower RTs than the young in the NAP protocol during the biological day (8-24 h) but not during the biological night (24-8 h). In the SD protocol, they had also significantly slower RTs but only during the first 16 h under low to moderate levels of sleep pressure conditions. The relative PVT performance decline after SD was significantly less pronounced in the elderly than in the young, so that both age groups exhibited similar performance decrements after 16 h into the SD protocol. Thus, nighttime- and sleep pressure-related RT slowing in the young "makes them old", or the elderly are less susceptible to circadian and wake-dependent PVT performance decrements. We interpret the gender effect as a different strategy in women when performing the PVT, although the instructions to be 'as fast as possible' were identical. Not only sleepiness and circadian phase, but also age and gender are major factors that may contribute to attentional failures in extended work shifts and during nighttime work shifts.
Similar articles
-
Circadian and wake-dependent modulation of fastest and slowest reaction times during the psychomotor vigilance task.Physiol Behav. 2004 Feb;80(5):695-701. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2003.12.004. Physiol Behav. 2004. PMID: 14984804 Clinical Trial.
-
Psychomotor vigilance task performance during total sleep deprivation in young and postmenopausal women.Behav Brain Res. 2007 Jun 4;180(1):42-7. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2007.02.019. Epub 2007 Feb 21. Behav Brain Res. 2007. PMID: 17400306
-
Mood, alertness, and performance in response to sleep deprivation and recovery sleep in experienced shiftworkers versus non-shiftworkers.Chronobiol Int. 2012 Jun;29(5):537-48. doi: 10.3109/07420528.2012.675258. Chronobiol Int. 2012. PMID: 22621349
-
Sleep, circadian rhythms, and psychomotor vigilance.Clin Sports Med. 2005 Apr;24(2):237-49, vii-viii. doi: 10.1016/j.csm.2004.12.007. Clin Sports Med. 2005. PMID: 15892921 Review.
-
Age-related changes in the circadian and homeostatic regulation of human sleep.Chronobiol Int. 2006;23(1-2):461-74. doi: 10.1080/07420520500545813. Chronobiol Int. 2006. PMID: 16687319 Review.
Cited by
-
Sleep in everyday life - relationship to mood and performance in young and older adults: a study protocol.Front Psychol. 2023 Nov 23;14:1264881. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1264881. eCollection 2023. Front Psychol. 2023. PMID: 38078262 Free PMC article.
-
The effect of sleep deprivation on postural stability among physically active young adults.Sci Rep. 2023 Oct 14;13(1):17477. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-44790-4. Sci Rep. 2023. PMID: 37838825 Free PMC article.
-
Circadian- and wake-dependent influences on face-name memory in healthy men and women over 3weeks of chronic sleep restriction.Sleep Health. 2024 Feb;10(1S):S84-S88. doi: 10.1016/j.sleh.2023.08.011. Epub 2023 Sep 30. Sleep Health. 2024. PMID: 37783575
-
Sex differences in the sustained attention of elementary school children.BMC Psychol. 2022 Dec 15;10(1):307. doi: 10.1186/s40359-022-01007-z. BMC Psychol. 2022. PMID: 36522790 Free PMC article.
-
The circadian variation of sleep and alertness of postmenopausal women.Sleep. 2023 Feb 8;46(2):zsac272. doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsac272. Sleep. 2023. PMID: 36420995 Free PMC article.
Publication types
MeSH terms
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources
Medical
Research Materials