Extremely interesting article with a number of good points!
Is there any chance that you could expand upon the driving objection? Why, in your model of sleep and the cognitive effects of sleep, does getting little sleep increase your risk of getting into a car accident when driving?
Another point: I find Mendelian randomization studies fairly convincing for the long-term effects of sleep. For example, here’s one based on UK Biobank data suggesting that sleep traits do not have an interaction with Alzheimer’s disease risk: https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/50/3/817/5956327
I agree that driving while being sleepy is dangerous and I don’t want anyone to drive, to operate heavy machinery, etc. when they are sleepy.
Driving simply seems to be a monotonous task of the exact kind where falling asleep even for a few seconds is very dangerous, thus driving while being sleepy is dangerous
Makes sense! I guess I wonder if there’s a literature on the cause of sleep deprivation induced car accidents, eg whether the problem is only microsleeps or whether things like impulsivity or reaction time also contribute.
Basically, in these driving simulations, reaction time and breaking time is significantly affected by sleep deprivation. I’m not sure how this could all be due to microsleeps. And it seems quite plausibly related to both risk of car accident and cognitive performance more broadly.
whether the problem is only microsleeps or whether things like impulsivity or reaction time also contribute.
There’s a thing called the Psychomotor Vigilance Task, which when I did it during a sleep deprivation experiment (ten years ago) showed both an increase in reaction time and increase in ‘lapses’ (not responding to the light quickly enough). I suspect that worse reaction time would contribute significantly (note that responding to things later means you need to respond to them more harshly, which causes problems of its own).
Why, in your model of sleep and the cognitive effects of sleep, does getting little sleep increase your risk of getting into a car accident when driving?
I Interpreted him as not explicitly stating that lack of sleep is dangerous when driving, but feeling sleepy:
Yep, I agree that driving while being sleepy is dangerous and I don’t want anyone to drive, to operate heavy machinery, etc. when they are sleepy. This, however, bears no relationship on any of the arguments I make.
But after reading the quoted section again I feel like “being sleepy” is ambiguous and your Interpretation might be valid.
Extremely interesting article with a number of good points!
Is there any chance that you could expand upon the driving objection? Why, in your model of sleep and the cognitive effects of sleep, does getting little sleep increase your risk of getting into a car accident when driving?
Another point: I find Mendelian randomization studies fairly convincing for the long-term effects of sleep. For example, here’s one based on UK Biobank data suggesting that sleep traits do not have an interaction with Alzheimer’s disease risk: https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/50/3/817/5956327
I wrote:
Driving simply seems to be a monotonous task of the exact kind where falling asleep even for a few seconds is very dangerous, thus driving while being sleepy is dangerous
Makes sense! I guess I wonder if there’s a literature on the cause of sleep deprivation induced car accidents, eg whether the problem is only microsleeps or whether things like impulsivity or reaction time also contribute.
ETA: Preliminary search: the first Google result found this study: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-020-09095-5
Basically, in these driving simulations, reaction time and breaking time is significantly affected by sleep deprivation. I’m not sure how this could all be due to microsleeps. And it seems quite plausibly related to both risk of car accident and cognitive performance more broadly.
There’s a thing called the Psychomotor Vigilance Task, which when I did it during a sleep deprivation experiment (ten years ago) showed both an increase in reaction time and increase in ‘lapses’ (not responding to the light quickly enough). I suspect that worse reaction time would contribute significantly (note that responding to things later means you need to respond to them more harshly, which causes problems of its own).
I Interpreted him as not explicitly stating that lack of sleep is dangerous when driving, but feeling sleepy:
But after reading the quoted section again I feel like “being sleepy” is ambiguous and your Interpretation might be valid.