Executive Functions and the Ability to Sustain Vigilance During Sleep Loss

There is considerable individual variability in the ability to sustain performance during sleep loss. Preliminary evidence suggests that individuals with higher trait-like activation/functioning of the prefrontal cortex may be less vulnerable to fatigue.We tested this hypothesis in a sample of 54 healthy volunteers who were assessed bi-hourly on a variant of the Psychomotor Vigilance Test during 41 h of sleep deprivation. A subset of these...