The effects of a single night of sleep deprivation on fluency and perfrontal cortex function during divergent thinking

The dorsal and ventral aspects fo the perfrontal cortex (PFC) are the two most consistency recruited in divergent thinking tasks. Given that fronta tasks have been shown to be vulnerable to sleep loss, we explored the impact of a single night of sleep deprivation on fluency (i.e., number of generated responses) and PFC function during divergent thinking. Participatnts underwent fucntional magnetic resonance imaging scannng twice while engaged in the Alternate Uses Task (AUT) - once follwing a single night of sleep deprivation and once follwing a night of normal sleep. They also wore writst activity monitors, which enabled us to quantify daily sleep and model congntive effectiveness. The intervention was effective, producing greater levels of fatigue and sleepness. Modeled cognitive effectivenss and fluenc were impaird following sleep deprivation, and sleep depreation was associated with greater activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) during AUT. The results suggest that an intervention known to temporarily compromise increased hemodynamic response in the left IFG.