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The relationship between poor sleep and inhibitory functions indicated by event-related potentials

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An Erratum to this article was published on 02 April 2008

Abstract

The present study focused on the relationship between normal variations of sleep and inhibitory functions as reflected in event-related potentials. For this reason one night of 21 healthy participants was analysed. After waking up all participants completed a visual Go/Nogo task. On the basis of a sleep disturbance index (SDI) the participants were separated into 8 SDI-good and 13 SDI-poor sleepers using a cluster analysis. The results showed that Nogo-N2 amplitude was smaller and Nogo-P3 latency longer in SDI-poor sleepers. Moreover, Go-P3 amplitude was smaller in SDI-poor sleepers. Performance parameters were not influenced by poor sleep. We concluded that poor sleep specifically affects the intensity of pre-motor inhibitory processes (Nogo-N2 amplitude), the speed to inhibit a motor response (Nogo-P3 latency) and the intensity of task-relevant information processing (Go-P3 amplitude). In further studies, it should be explored under which conditions such subliminal deficits also become relevant for overt behaviour.

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Notes

  1. In the present study “good” and “poor” is no rating of subjective sleep quality but a classification entirely based on objective measures. Nevertheless, in order to avoid misunderstandings, we used the terms “SDI-good” and “SDI-poor”.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Virtual Institute “Transportation Noise–Effects on Sleep and Performance” of the Helmholtz Gemeinschaft (HGF) under the grant-no VH-VI-111.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Occupational Physiology at Dortmund University, Ardeystr. 67, 44139, Dortmund, Germany

    Markus Breimhorst, Michael Falkenstein, Anke Marks & Barbara Griefahn

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  1. Markus Breimhorst
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  2. Michael Falkenstein
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  3. Anke Marks
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  4. Barbara Griefahn
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Correspondence to Barbara Griefahn.

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An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00221-008-1354-4

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Breimhorst, M., Falkenstein, M., Marks, A. et al. The relationship between poor sleep and inhibitory functions indicated by event-related potentials. Exp Brain Res 187, 631–639 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-008-1333-9

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