Performance monitoring following total sleep deprivation: effects of task type and error rate

There is a need to understand the neural basis of performance deficits that result from sleep deprivation. Performance monitoring tasks generate response-locked event-related potentials (ERPs), generated from the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) located in the medial surface of the frontal lobe that reflect error processing. The outcome of previous research on performance monitoring during sleepiness has been mixed. The purpose of this study was to evaluate performance monitoring in a controlled study of experimental sleep deprivation using a traditional Flanker task, and to broaden this examination using a response inhibition task. Forty-nine young adults (24 male) were randomly assigned to a total sleep deprivation or rested control group. The sleep deprivation group was slower on the Flanker task and less accurate on a Go/NoGo task compared to controls. General attentional impairments were evident in stimulus-locked ERPs for the sleep deprived group: P300 was delayed on Flanker trials and smaller to Go-stimuli. Further, N2 was smaller to NoGo stimuli, and the response-locked ERN was smaller on both tasks, reflecting neurocognitive impairment during performance monitoring. In the Flanker task, higher error rate was associated with smaller ERN amplitudes for both groups. Examination of ERN amplitude over time showed that it attenuated in the rested control group as error rate increased, but such habituation was not apparent in the sleep deprived group. Poor performing sleep deprived individuals had a larger Pe response than controls, possibly indicating perseveration of errors. These data provide insight into the neural underpinnings of performance failure during sleepiness and have implications for workplace and driving safety.