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No effect of chronotype on sleepiness, alertness, and sustained attention during a single night shift

journal contribution
posted on 2021-10-26, 01:15 authored by Andrew ReiterAndrew Reiter, Charli SargentCharli Sargent, Gregory RoachGregory Roach
The study's aim was to examine the effect of chronotype on cognitive performance during a single night shift. Data were collected from 72 (36f) young, healthy adults in a laboratory study. Participants had a 9 h sleep period (03:00-12:00) followed by an 8 h night shift (23:00-07:00). During the night shift, participants completed five test sessions, which included measures of subjective sleepiness, subjective alertness, and sustained attention (i.e., psychomotor vigilance task; PVT). Dim light melatonin onset (DLMO) was derived from saliva samples taken during the evening preceding the night shift. A tertile split of DLMO was used to determine three chronotype categories: earlier (DLMO = 20:22 ± 0:42), intermediate (DLMO = 21:31 ± 0:13), and later (DLMO = 22:54 ± 0:54). There were (a) significant main effects of test session (all p < 0.001); (b) no main effects of chronotype; and (c) no interaction effects between chronotype and test session on sleepiness, alertness, PVT response time, and PVT lapses. The results indicate that under controlled sleeping conditions, chronotype based on dim light melatonin onset did not affect nighttime performance. Differences in performance during night shift between chronotypes reported by field studies may be related to differences in the amount and/or timing of sleep before or between night shifts, rather than circadian timing.

Funding

Category 1 - Australian Competitive Grants (this includes ARC, NHMRC)

History

Volume

3

Issue

3

Start Page

377

End Page

386

Number of Pages

10

eISSN

2624-5175

ISSN

2624-5175

Location

Switzerland

Publisher

MDPI

Publisher License

CC BY

Additional Rights

CC BY 4.0

Language

eng

Peer Reviewed

  • Yes

Open Access

  • Yes

Acceptance Date

2021-06-21

Author Research Institute

  • Appleton Institute

Era Eligible

  • Yes

Medium

Electronic

Journal

Clocks & Sleep

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