Figure 4.

Inter-individual differences in the brain activation responses to a night of total sleep loss. Twenty healthy young adults were scanned twice in the MR scanner while they performed visual selective attention tasks. One scan was at rested wakefulness (RW) after a normal night’s sleep, the other scan was after one night of acute total sleep deprivation (SD). The 20 subjects were median split into Vulnerable and Non-vulnerable (Resilient) groups, according to their change in PVT performance accuracy after sleep deprivation. Lapses refer to the trials that subjects’ responses were at least 0.5 s longer than the mean reaction time (+ 0.5s Delay). This figure shows the state-specific mean and lapse associated BOLD signal in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and inferior occipital cortex for the Vulnerable and Non-vulnerable groups. Lapses were associated with a stronger signal in the bilateral intraparietal sulcus during both RW and SD. Both regions showed a decline in activation following SD for the Vulnerable but not for the Non-vulnerable subjects. Figure and modified caption based on Neuroimage 51 (2010), 835-843, Chee MW, Tan JC, Lapsing when sleep deprived: neural activation characteristics of resistant and vulnerable individuals, Copyright 2010, with permission from Elsevier.