Sleep deprivation disrupts visual attention; however, the effects of chronic poor sleep quality on it are not understood. The dorsal attention network (DAN) and the ventral attention network (VAN) are involved in visual attention and search (VSA), with the DAN being important for the serial attention network and the VAN for parallel “pop-out” visual search.
The aim of the study was to evaluate correlation of sleep quality with visual attention and search, functional, and tracts’ properties of the DAN and VAN.
We recruited 79 young male subjects and assessed their sleep quality using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), dividing subjects into poor sleepers (PSs) and good sleepers (GSs) based on a cutoff of 5. Daytime sleepiness, sleep hygiene, depression, and anxiety levels were also evaluated. We assessed VSA using a computerized match-to-sample (MTS) task. We extracted functional networks and tracts of the VAN and DAN and statistically assessed group differences in task performance and imaging covarying age, depression, and anxiety. An interaction model with MTS × group was also done on imaging.
In total, 43.67% of subjects were PSs. Sleep quality significantly correlated with daytime sleepiness, sleep hygiene, depression, and anxiety (all
Our findings show no association between sleep quality and VSA in task performance and imaging correlates of the attention network. However, unlike the GS group, poor sleep quality is associated with VSA being more reliant on the DAN than on the VAN.