Temporal fluctuations in vigilance and neural networks after sleep deprivation

Vigilance instability in the sleep-deprived state was deemed to result from the imbalance in thalamic-FPN-DMN circuits (FPN: frontoparietal network; DMN: default mode network), but the behavioural correlation of this neural hypothesis is still unclear. To address this issue, we applied dynamic functional connectivity (DFC) analysis on the task-based fMRI data and detected high arousal state (HAS) and low arousal state (LAS). Relative to HAS, LAS demonstrated higher positive connectivity within task-positive networks (TPN), attenuated TPN-DMN anti-correlation, and greater anti-correlation between cerebral and subcortico-cerebellar networks. Critically, DFC differences between HAS and LAS were correlated with the ongoing vigilance performance in the sleep-deprived state. The current findings confirmed a direct link between vigilance instability and DFC in the thalamic-FPN-DMN circuits. In particular, we postulated that the integration within task-related system and segregation between task-related system and the subcortico-cerebellar system might be the critical neural markers underlying vigilance instability in the sleep-deprived state.