SLEEP 2011 Abstract Supplement

A. Basic Science XI. Sleep Deprivation
0283
DOES VULNERABILITY TO SLEEP DEPRIVATION
INFLUENCE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF STIMULANTS ON
PSYCHOMOTOR VIGILANCE?
Killgore WD 1,2 , Balkin TJ 2
1
Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Belmont, MA, USA, 2 Behavioral
Biology, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, MD,
USA
Introduction: There are trait-like individual differences in the ability to
resist the adverse effects of sleep loss on performance. However, it remains
unknown whether these traits influence the effectiveness of various
stimulant medications during prolonged sleep deprivation. Here, we
broadly classified individuals as either “resistant” or “vulnerable” based
on a median split of their performance on a psychomotor vigilance test
(PVT) during two nights of sleep deprivation and examined whether
this trait-like resistance affected responses to several common stimulant
medications the following morning.
Methods: From a sample of 53 healthy subjects, a median split was used
to classify 27 (17 men; mean age = 24.0 years, SD = 4.4) as “resistant”
and 26 (12 men; mean age = 23.0 years, SD = 3.7) as “vulnerable” to
sleep deprivation based on PVT performance during the first 41 hours
of sleep deprivation. At 44 hours awake (3:00 am), participants were
administered either 600 mg caffeine, 400 mg modafinil, 20 mg d-amphetamine,
or placebo. Performance on the Palm PVT was assessed at
47 hours of wakefulness (6:20 am).
Results: A significant vulnerability group by drug interaction was found
(p=.005). For those receiving placebo, the resistant group far outperformed
the vulnerable group (p=.0003). For those receiving stimulants,
there were no differences among vulnerability groups. For vulnerable
subjects, all three stimulants outperformed placebo (p