Is pre-attentive processing compromised by prolonged wakefulness? Effects of total sleep deprivation on the mismatch negativity

We investigated the potential influence of sustained wakefulness on pre-att entive capacities by recording the mismatch negativity (MMN), an electrophy siological manifestation associated with nonintentional detection of audito ry oddball stimuli. The MMN was elicited by pitch deviants presented to bot h ears via earphones, at the beginning of a total sleep deprivation session (baseline), after 24 hr, and after 36 hr of continuous controlled wakefuln ess, A conspicuous MMN response was elicited at all three sessions. With ti me, however, a small yet significant gradual reduction in the MMN amplitude was evident. Whereas previous research suggested that controlled attention -demanding tasks are hampered by sleep deprivation, the balance of the pres ent results suggests that passive (total) sleep deprivation may also bring about some degradation in the pre-attentive detection of environmental irre gularities and as a consequence may disrupt the reflexive shift of attentio n induced by such events.