EVALUATION OF DROWSINESS DURING PROLONGED SLEEP-DEPRIVATION

Prolonged sleep deprivation is a relatively frequent situation during military training or warfare. A 60-hour sleep deprivation experiment w as carried out on eight healthy volunteers of the French Air Force to assess drowsiness. Parameters used to assess drowsiness were questionn aires on behavior, measurement of sleep latency (MSLT), continuous ele ctroencephalogram recording; and humber of response failures or contro l losses observed during repeated psychomotor tests. Results showed a gradual decrement in arousal in all subjects and for all tests. These results, consistent with the literature, confirm the emergence of drow siness after the 24th hour of uninterrupted wakefulness. This phenomen on bad an increasingly negative effect on performance due to ''micro-s leep'' episodes which substantially reduced psychomotor performance.