Research project Why are we differently vulnerable to sleep loss?

Sleep loss is common and can lead to drastic changes in cognitive functions. However, while some individuals suffer from severe impairments, others manage sleep loss easily. There is currently a poor understanding of the mechanisms behind these different reactions, and the field suffers from mostly under-powered studies.

We want to address these problems by taking a large-scale approach, determining within-subject changes in 500 individuals after normal sleep (8h/night) and after two nights of restricted sleep (4h/night). This will allow us to determine the magnitude of cognitive impairments after sleep loss with much better accuracy than previous studies. We will also test a model where a person’s cognitive profile (in the domains of attention, emotion regulation, perceptual stability, and meta cognition) predicts cognitive impairments following restricted sleep. The big data approach will further allow data-driven analyses to find traits and mediators aiding tolerance to sleep loss.

This project, the largest sleep experiment ever conducted, will provide fundamental knowledge of how sleep loss affects several cognitive domains, and the extent to which one s cognitive profile predicts such vulnerability. This is highly relevant, considering the prevalence of disturbed sleep in today s society, and knowledge about how individuals are differently affected will be useful both on a personal level, and to prevent accidents due to cognitive failures at work and in public settings.