The Impact of Partial Sleep Deprivation on the Diurnal Variations of Cognitive Performance in Trained Subjects

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of partial sleep deprivation on the diurnal variations of cognitive performance of handball goalkeepers. Twelve handball goalkeepers (18.5±1.7 years; 8.3±2.4 years of experiment) performed 3 cognitive tasks by the use of the reaction time (RT), the stroop, and the barrage tests (to evaluate the RT, the selective and supported attention respectively) following 2 situations of sleep deprivation (in the beginning or in the end of the night) and a control situation. The tests were performed at 08:00 and 16:00. Our results showed an increased RT and a fall of the level of the attention after the partial sleep deprivation in the afternoon hours. However, the partial sleep deprivation didn’t affect the morning cognitive performance. In conclusion, partial sleep deprivation affects the diurnal variation of cognitive performance by increasing the RT and reducing the attentional capacities in the afternoon hours.