INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of sleep deprivation on individual attentional function and related electrophysiological mechanisms.
METHODS: Twenty healthy men who were deprived of sleep for 24 h were evaluated by selective attention test, persistent attention test, and event-related potentials (ERP) experiment.
RESULTS: After 24 h of sleep deprivation, the subjects' selective attention decreased, mainly manifested as prolonged response time, decreased motion stability, increased rate of neglect error, decreased sustained attention, prolonged latency of P300 at Cz (=0.001), and decreased amplitude (=0.000).
CONCLUSION: After 24 h of sleep deprivation, the attentional ability decreased significantly, and behavioral and ERP indicators showed certain changes.