Altered frontal connectivity after sleep deprivation predicts sustained attentional impairment: A resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study

A series of studies have shown that sleep loss impairs one's capability for sustained attention. However, the underlying neurobiological mechanism linking sleep loss with sustained attention has not been elucidated. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of sleep deprivation on the resting-state brain and explored whether the magnitude of vigilance impairment after acute sleep deprivation can be predicted by measures of spontaneous fluctuations and functional connectivity. We implemented resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging with 42 participants under both normal sleep and 24-hr sleep-deprivation conditions. The amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF) and functional connectivity was used to investigate the neurobiological change caused by sleep deprivation, and the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) was used to measure sustained attention in each state. Correlation analysis was used to investigate the relationship between the change in ALFF/functional connectivity and vigilance performance. Sleep deprivation induced significant reductions in ALFF in default mode network nodes and frontal-parietal network nodes, while inducing significant increments of ALFF in the bilateral thalamus, motor cortex, and visual cortex. The increased ALFF in the visual cortex was correlated with increased PVT lapses. Critically, decreased frontal-thalamus connectivity was correlated with increased PVT lapses, while increased frontal-visual connectivity was correlated with increased PVT lapses. The findings indicated that acute sleep deprivation induced a robust alteration in the resting brain, and sustained attentional impairment after sleep deprivation could be predicted by altered frontal connectivity with crucial neural nodes of stimulus input, such as the thalamus and visual cortex.