Countermeasures to the neurocognitive deficits associated with sleep loss

Sleep loss exerts deleterious effects on nearly all aspects of neurocognitive performance evaluated to date; such effects in turn cause decreased readiness, reduced productivity and increased risk of errors and accidents. Psychostimulants help maintain neurocognitive performance during sleep loss but their effectiveness is transient, and they only delay sleep onset – they do not replace sleep. Optimizing sleep either pharmacologically or nonpharmacologically is a sustainable approach for maintaining neurocognitive performance under conditions of restricted sleep. We review these approaches and suggest avenues for further exploration, particularly with regard to nonpharmacologic augmentation of the electroencephalographic activity thought to underlie specific aspects of neurocognitive performance.