Nancy Nguyen COGSCI1 Assignment 2 (1)

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Nov 24, 2024

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Intersection Between Sleep Deprivation and Cognition From learning about the intersections of sleep deprivation and cognition, we can unfold much information about how essential sleep, a crucial biological process, is and how lack of rest may lead to cognitive impairment. It is common knowledge that sleep is extremely important for acquiring knowledge, cognitive thinking, decision making, etc. There have been numerous studies made and experiments conducted to further analyze the association between sleep and cognition. One study conducted by Hans Van Dongen (2003), the Director of the Sleep and Performance Research Center, supports the idea that lack of sleep leads to increasing cognitive deficits and “that even relatively moderate sleep restriction can seriously impair waking neurobehavioral functions in healthy adults” (p. 1). Over the course of 14 days, the study participants were given a PVT (psychomotor vigilance test), DSST (said digit-symbol substitution task), and SAST (a serial addition/subtraction test) several times for a day. The performance of the individuals, who were restricted to 4 and 6 hours of sleep every night, deteriorated across all cognitive activities. Additionally, sleep debt occurs where the sleep schedule of an individual becomes irregular and might fluctuate overtime. Similar findings by a research professor at Washington State University, Gregroy Belenky (2003), also reported that concerning “chronic sleep restriction the brain undergoes adaptive changes . . .[which] may act as a rate limiter or governor that reduces (caps) the operational capacity of the brain, allowing the brain to operate in the face of a restricted sleep budget” (para. 28). From this we can conclude that sleep is not only important for staying healthy and thinking, but also for providing cognitive space for memory, intelligence and rationality. It is suggested to have 7-8.5 hours of sleep to be able to hold key information, recollect memories and more cognitive actions that are controlled by brain areas such as the frontal lobe, cerebellum, and basal ganglia. While the association of lack of sleep and its negative effects on our cognition is widely known and established, there is more further research that needs to be done to learn about the effects of sleep deprivation on the brain. Poe, Walsh, and Bjorness (2010) found that one of the opposing arguments against the relationship between sleep deprivation and cognition is that “people treated for depression with monoamine oxidase inhibitors and other antidepressants obtain little to no REM sleep for long periods of time, yet have no obvious learning and memory deficits” (para. 46). Although deficits mentioned are documented for people and animals, many challenges and factors arise when further diving into the sleep and cognitive functions for different and unique individuals. In advancing cognitive science, learning about how lack of sleep affects cognitive performance is essential in a consumerist society where many must study, work, and move to make a living. However, these actions are not possible without the cognitive capacity and energy that sleep provides for those who rest for enough hours. An important demographic that should be encouraged to get more sleep are college students who are notoriously sleep-deprived due to an overload of academic and extracurricular activities. Especially since they need cognitive health to assist in studying for exams, finishing assignments and acquiring information through lectures and study halls. To further advance this topic, the question I would ask is: Can sleep deprivation make someone more susceptible to other people’s influences/peer pressure? As cognitive impairment from sleep deprivation is something that many people experience, I wonder if it can affect their decision making/choices they make while sleep deprived. Not only in the context of basic decisions made during a normal day but also in criminal investigations and interrogations where speaking rationally and honestly is of utmost importance. Researching more about cognitive

errors from lack of sleep and false confessions is another topic that I am interested in further investigating and exploring. False confessions can undoubtedly have serious implications, and they may appear to be the result of various forms of pressure. Interrogators, on the other hand, are more likely to "capitalize on psychologically coercive interrogation strategies" (Frenda et al., 2016) which have been shown to raise the probability of false confessions in innocent defendants. This highlights the importance of further research on factors of criminal criminal investigations and interrogations.

References Belenky, G., Wesensten, N. J., Thorne, D. R., Thomas, M. L., Sing, H. C., Redmond, D. P., Russo, M. B., & Balkin, T. J. (2003). Patterns of performance degradation and restoration during sleep restriction and subsequent recovery: a sleep dose-response study. Journal of sleep research , 12 (1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2869.2003.00337 Frenda, S. J., Berkowitz, S. R., Loftus, E. F., & Fenn, K. M. (2016). Sleep deprivation and false confessions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , 113 (8), 2047–2050. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1521518113 Poe, G. R., Walsh, C. M., & Bjorness, T. E. (2010). Cognitive neuroscience of sleep. Progress in brain research , 185 , 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-53702-7.00001-4 Van Dongen, H. P., Maislin, G., Mullington, J. M., & Dinges, D. F. (2003). The cumulative cost of additional wakefulness: dose-response effects on neurobehavioral functions and sleep physiology from chronic sleep restriction and total sleep deprivation. Sleep , 26 (2), 117–126. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/26.2.117

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