Commonly experienced acute and cumulative 8-hour sleep loss differentially affect simulated driving during a night-time to early-morning commute: a randomized controlled crossover trial
Clicks: 19
ID: 322388
2026
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This
article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score —
reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
Reader Engagement
Emerging Content
5.4
/100
19 views
5 readers
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
EmergingRanked #26 of 198 articles by views in Sleep & breathing = Schlaf & Atmung
Most read
Least read
Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 198 in total.
Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet mintedCreate a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.
5
SUSD
one-off · no wallet required
Abstract
Abstract Sleep loss is a major contributor to traffic accidents, yet the differential effects of two common real-world patterns of sleep loss, acute total sleep deprivation and cumulative sleep restriction producing equivalent 8-hour sleep loss, on vehicle control remain poorly quantified. Leveraging tightly controlled sleep manipulation and highly immersive driving simulation, we directly compared the effects of different patterns of sleep loss under naturalistic driving conditions. Twenty healthy male participants completed a randomized within-subject crossover sleep design, comprising normal sleep, cumulative sleep restriction (four nights 2 h reduced sleep per night), and acute total sleep deprivation (one night without sleep), each followed by a simulated nighttime-to–early-morning commute. Acute total sleep deprivation produced pronounced impairments in vehicle control. Most prominently, lateral control deteriorated within 4-6 min under acute deprivation, with impairments comparable to those reported at high blood alcohol concentrations (1.2–1.4 g/L). Steering instability and integrated driving performance showed convergent deterioration. In contrast, cumulative sleep restriction resulted in smaller and less consistent changes, while vigilance task performance and speed variability were comparatively preserved across all conditions. Despite graded increases in subjective sleepiness across conditions, cumulative sleep restriction produced only limited changes in driving performance, whereas acute sleep deprivation produced a disproportionate risk to driving safety by selectively and rapidly degrading operational vehicle control. These findings, obtained under ecologically relevant sleep and driving conditions, underscore functional and potentially physiological differences between acute and cumulative sleep loss and, practically, highlight the importance of distinguishing between them when considering sleep-loss–related driving impairment and safety risk.
| Reference Key |
openalex_W7170511233
Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using
SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
|
|---|---|
| Authors | Stefan Lakämper, Michael Scholz, Thomas Kræmer, Hans‐Peter Landolt, Kristina Keller |
| Journal | Sleep & breathing = Schlaf & Atmung |
| Year | 2026 |
| DOI |
10.1093/sleep/zsag206
|
| URL | |
| Keywords | Keywords not found |
Citations
No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org
Comments
No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.