An ERP examination of the different effects of sleep deprivation on exogenously cued and endogenously cued attention.

Background: Behavior and neuroimaging studies have shown selective attention to be negatively impacted by sleep deprivation. Two unresolved questions are (1) whether sleep deprivation impairs attention modulation of early visual processing or of a later stage of cognition and (2) how sleep deprivation affects exogenously versus endogenously driven selective attention.

Study Objectives: To investigate the time course and different effects of sleep deprivation on exogenously and endogenously cued selective attention.

Design: Participants performed modified Attention Network Tests (ANTs) using exogenously and endogenously cued targets to index brain networks underlying selective attention. Target-locked event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded as participants performed the Attention Network Tests on 2 days separated by 24 hours of total sleeplessness.

Participants: Fourteen US Military Academy cadets and 12 US Army soldiers from the Ironhorse Brigade, Ft. Hood, Texas.

Measurement And Results: For both Attention Network Tests, sleep deprivation led to slowed response times, decreased accuracy rates, a diminished positive P3 (450- to 550-ms) ERP component, and an enhanced P2 (312- to 434-ms) ERP component. In contrast, the parietal N1 (157- to 227-ms) ERP response was reduced with sleep deprivation for endogenously, but not exogenously, cued targets. These sleep deprivation-related effects occurred in the context of typical behavior and ERP patterns expected in a cued spatial-attention task.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that as little as 24 hours of sleep deprivation affects both early and late stages of attention selection but affects endogenously driven selective attention to a greater degree than it does exogenously driven selective attention.