Limitations on visual information processing in the sleep-deprived brain and their underlying mechanisms

Sleep deprivation (SD) which has become more prevalent globally, impairs various aspects of cognition. Slowing of visual processing, loss of selective attention, distractor inhibition, visual short-term memory and reduced peripheral processing capacity are associated with diminished engagement of fronto-parietal regions mediating top-down control of attention as well as selectively reduced visual extrastriate cortex activation. The onset of ‘local sleep’ following sustained wakefulness could account for these, as well as time-on-task effects. Concurrently, alterations in cortical-cortical as well as thalamo-cortical connectivity can disrupt the flow of sensory information from the periphery to association cortex responsible for higher order cognition. Our ability to process visual stimuli is compromised when sleep deprived, even during the periods when we are apparently responsive.