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Is pre-attentive processing compromised by prolonged wakefulness? Effects of total sleep deprivation on the mismatch negativity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 September 2001

AMIR RAZ ,
LEON Y. DEOUELL  and
SHLOMO BENTIN
AMIR RAZ
Affiliation:
Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel Department of Psychology, Cognitive Electrophysiology Laboratory, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel Amir Raz is currently at the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology, Department of Psychiatry, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, Box 140, 1300 York Ave., New York, NY 10021, USA. E-mail: amrz006@med.cornell.edu.
LEON Y. DEOUELL
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Cognitive Electrophysiology Laboratory, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
SHLOMO BENTIN
Affiliation:
Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel Department of Psychology, Cognitive Electrophysiology Laboratory, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
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Abstract

We investigated the potential influence of sustained wakefulness on pre-attentive capacities by recording the mismatch negativity (MMN), an electrophysiological manifestation associated with nonintentional detection of auditory oddball stimuli. The MMN was elicited by pitch deviants presented to both ears via earphones, at the beginning of a total sleep deprivation session (baseline), after 24 hr, and after 36 hr of continuous controlled wakefulness. A conspicuous MMN response was elicited at all three sessions. With time, however, a small yet significant gradual reduction in the MMN amplitude was evident. Whereas previous research suggested that controlled attention-demanding tasks are hampered by sleep deprivation, the balance of the present results suggests that passive (total) sleep deprivation may also bring about some degradation in the pre-attentive detection of environmental irregularities and as a consequence may disrupt the reflexive shift of attention induced by such events.

Keywords

Mismatch negativityPre-attentive processingTotal sleep deprivationEvent-related potentials
Type
Research Article
Information
Psychophysiology , Volume 38 , Issue 5 , September 2001 , pp. 787 - 795
Copyright
2001 Society for Psychophysiological Research

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