Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 13, 2026

Establishing a Device for Sleep Deprivation in Mice
Published on: September 22, 2023
Fighting Sleep at Night: Brain Correlates and Vulnerability to Sleep Loss
Micheline Maire1,2, Carolin Franziska Reichert1,2, Virginie Gabel1,2
1Center for Chronobiology, Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Objective:
Even though wakefulness at night leads to profound performance deterioration and is regularly experienced by shift workers, its cerebral correlates remain virtually unexplored.
Methods:
We assessed brain activity in young healthy adults during a vigilant attention task under high and low sleep pressure during night-time, coinciding with strongest circadian sleep drive. We examined sleep-loss-related attentional vulnerability by considering a PERIOD3 polymorphism presumably impacting on sleep homeostasis.
Results:
Our results link higher sleep-loss-related attentional vulnerability to cortical and subcortical deactivation patterns during slow reaction times (i.e., suboptimal vigilant attention). Concomitantly, thalamic regions were progressively less recruited with time-on-task and functionally less connected to task-related and arousal-promoting brain regions in those volunteers showing higher attentional instability in their behavior. The data further suggest that the latter is linked to shifts into a task-inactive default-mode network in between task-relevant stimulus occurrence.
Interpretation:
We provide a multifaceted view on cerebral correlates of sleep loss at night and propose that genetic predisposition entails differential cerebral coping mechanisms, potentially compromising adequate performance during night work.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Insufficient Sleep and Sleep Deprivation
Sleep deprivation is a more severe form of sleep loss...
Substance Use Disorders Affecting Sleep
Understanding the concepts of physical dependence,...
Understanding Sleep
The circadian rhythm, a nearly 24-hour cycle, is deeply influenced by environmental light cues. Light exposure directly affects the hypothalamus, which in turn regulates...
Circadian Rhythms and Gene Regulation
Circadian Rhythms and Gene Regulation
REM Sleep Behavior Disorder
RBD is significantly associated with...

