Acute sleep deprivation is associated with increased atrial electromechanical delay in healthy young adults

Sleep deprivation (SD) is known to be associated with an increased incidence of adverse cardiovascular outcome. Atrial electromechanical delay (AEMD) calculated from tissue Doppler imaging has been shown to detect atrial impairment in paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. The aim of the study was to investigate whether AEMD would increase in otherwise healthy young adults with acute SD.

Twenty-seven healthy volunteers were included into the study (mean age: 26 ± 3 years). The participants underwent an echocardiographic examination after a night with SD. AEMD defined as the interval from the onset of P wave to the onset of late diastolic Am wave (PA) was calculated from the lateral and septal mitral annulus, and lateral tricuspid annulus (PA lateral, PA septum, and PA tricuspid, respectively).

Subjects had similar values of PA tricuspid duration in milliseconds after the night of sleep debt when compared after regular sleep, whereas they had significantly higher values of PA lateral and PA septal durations (69.05 ± 10.64 ms vs 51.31 ± 11.32 ms, P < 0.001 and 51.75 ± 7.15 ms vs 41.37 ± 8.52 ms, P < 0.001; respectively). Moreover, participants had higher inter-AEMD and intra-AEMD values after the night of sleep debt when compared after regular sleep [30.19 ± 9.84 ms vs 14.72 ± 6.81 ms, P < 0.001 and 12.82 ± 7.09 ms vs 4.41 ± 3.60 ms, P < 0.001; respectively]. Pearson's correlation analyses suggest that inter-AEMD and intra-AEMD were inversely correlated with sleep time (r =-0.628, r =-0.499, r =-0.696, and r =-0.572, respectively [all P < 0.001]).

In conclusion, in this cross-sectional study, we clearly found that even one night of SD is associated with higher values of inter-AEMD and intra-AEMD in healthy young adults.