Cold Hands, Warm Feet: Sleep Deprivation Disrupts Thermoregulation and Its Association with Vigilance
Open accessAbstract
STUDY OBJECTIVES: Vigilance is affected by induced and spontaneous skin temperature fluctuations. Whereas sleep deprivation strongly affects vigilance, no previous study examined in detail its effect on human skin temperature fluctuations and their association with vigilance. DESIGN: In a repeated-measures constant routine design, skin temperatures were assessed continuously from 14 locations while performance was assessed using a reaction time task, including eyes-open video monitoring, performed five times a day for 2 days, after a normal sleep or sleep deprivation night. SETTING: Participants were seated in a dimly lit, temperature-controlled laboratory. PATIENTS OR PARTICIPANTS: Eight healthy young adults (five males, age 22.0 ± 1.8 yr (mean ± standard deviation)). INTERVENTION: One night of sleep deprivation. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Mixed-effect regression models were used to evaluate the effect of sleep deprivation on skin temperature gradients of the upper (ear-mastoid), middle (hand-arm), and lower (foot-leg) body, and on the association between fluctuations in performance and in temperature gradients. Sleep deprivation induced a marked dissociation of thermoregulatory skin temperature gradients, indicative of attenuated heat loss from the hands co-occurring with enhanced heat loss from the feet. Sleep deprivation moreover attenuated the association between fluctuations in performance and temperature gradients; the association was best preserved for the upper body gradient. CONCLUSIONS: Sleep deprivation disrupts coordination of fluctuations in thermoregulatory skin temperature gradients. The dissociation of middle and lower body temperature gradients may therefore be evaluated as a marker for sleep debt, and the upper body gradient as a possible aid in vigilance assessment when sleep debt is unknown. Importantly, our findings suggest that sleep deprivation affects the coordination between skin blood flow fluctuations and the baroreceptor-mediated cardiovascular regulation that prevents venous pooling of blood in the lower limbs when there is the orthostatic challenge of an upright posture.
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The data provide indirect support linking the state of sleep deprivation, and the subjective severity of this state, to altered internal homeostasis following extended time awake, consistent with established alterations in metabolism and temperature regulation following sleep loss.
“our data provide indirect support linking the state of sleep deprivation, and the subjective severity of this state, to altered internal homeostasis following extended time awake, and is consistent with already established alterations in metabolism and temperature regulation following sleep loss26,27.”
From The impact of sleep deprivation on food desire in the human brain (2013) · cites this paper as [27]
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- Authors
- Romeijn, N., Verweij, I. M., Koeleman, A., Mooij, A., Steimke, R., Virkkala, J., van der Werf, Y., & Van Someren, E. J. W.
- Affiliations
- Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NL)
- Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (DE)
- Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FI)
- Corresponding author
- Romeijn, Nico
- Venue
- Sleep
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2012-12
- Volume
- 35
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 1673-1683
- ISSN
- 0161-8105 (ISSN-L)
- 1550-9109
- PMC
- PMC3490360
- OpenAlex
- W2155851145
- Cited by
- 41
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 3 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 3.86
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- SLEEP (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Amsterdam UMC (VU Amsterdam) - Institutional Repository (publishedVersion)
- KNAW research portal (Royal Academy of Art and Sciences (KNAW)) (publishedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- Pure Amsterdam UMC (submittedVersion)
- KNAW Research Portal (The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) (submittedVersion)
- VU Research Portal (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Stichting voor de Technische Wetenschappen
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and Work-Related Fatigue
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Thermoregulation and physiological responses
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
- Keywords
- sleep deprivation, thermoregulation, skin temperature gradient, sustained attention, sleep debt, reaction time, skin blood flow, venous pooling, orthostatic challenge
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Attention, Body Temperature Regulation, Female, Humans, Male, Psychomotor Performance, Reaction Time, Skin Temperature, Sleep Deprivation, Wakefulness, Baroreflex, Young Adult
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