The oldest study investigating the effects of total
sleep deprivation (50 h) in students’ motor performance89
showed significant impairments in psychomotor
abilities: such a decrease appeared after
only 18 h of wakefulness on reaction times. Other
measures required a longer deprivation to show
detrimental effects: endurance (34 h of continuous
wake), agility, balance and power (42 h), speed
(after 50 h).
Nevertheless, the first study which examined the
effect of sleep loss on adolescents’ psychomotor
and cognitive performances was carried out by
Carskadon and co-workers.90 The authors assessed
the sleepiness (through the Multiple Sleep Latency
Test, MSLT, and subjective ratings) and performance
(problem-solving/computational ability,
memory, auditory attention, sustained motor activity)
of 12 adolescents during 38 h of total sleep
deprivation. Results showed an increase in both
objective and subjective sleepiness, whereas performance
was affected only on memory and
computational speed. No statistically significant
changes were observed on attention and sustained
motor activity. The authors concluded that the
response of adolescents to relatively mild sleep
deprivation is similar to that of older subjects: as a
possible explanation for these data, the authors
proposed the so-called ‘lapse hypothesis’,91