2B-Alert App 2.0: personalized caffeine recommendations for optimal alertness

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Human Physiology
• Applied Technology

Background:

• Caffeine effectively mitigates sleep loss effects on alertness.
• Lack of personalized tools hinders optimal caffeine consumption for alertness.
• Smartphone applications offer potential for real-time physiological monitoring and guidance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To extend the 2B-Alert app's capabilities for personalized caffeine recommendations.
• To optimize alertness by tailoring caffeine intake to individual sleep-loss responses.
• To validate the app's effectiveness in a controlled sleep deprivation study.

Main Methods:

• Prospective validation in a 62-hour total sleep deprivation study with 21 participants.
• Utilized the psychomotor vigilance test (PVT) for alertness measurement via the 2B-Alert app.
• App learned individual sleep-loss responses within 36 hours to provide real-time caffeine recommendations.

Main Results:

• Participants received personalized caffeine recommendations ranging from 0 to 800 mg.
• Despite varying caffeine amounts, participants maintained target alertness levels approximately 80% of the time.
• The app successfully guided caffeine consumption to sustain alertness.

Conclusions:

• The 2B-Alert app automatically learns individual phenotypes for sleep-loss response.
• Personalized, real-time caffeine recommendations enable desired alertness levels.
• The app provides a novel tool for managing alertness irrespective of sleep-loss susceptibility.