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what exactly is microsleep
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by RockRpsgt on
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I believe that I read somewhere that the average person carries between 20 and 40 hours of sleep debt. Micro-sleeps are our body's way of paying back this debt when we won't. They can consist of sleeping in between blinks to the 15 minute power nap. Along with napping and sleeping micro-sleep is another way our bodies keep sleep deprivation to a minimum. This can happen without us ever knowing we were sleeping. This is due to the short duration of the sleep.
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Permalink Reply by sleepycarol on
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Are you kidding? I mean how can our bodies sleep between blinks?
How would one recognize this in another person?
Can you give us more details Rock?
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To put it into the context of the original discussion. The man in Mike's post was trying to break the 40 day world record for staying awake. After 10 days of staying awake this gentleman would have around 80 hours of sleep debt. according to Dr. Dement the most a person carries around on avg. is 40. After this point the body begins to look for ways to work off that debt. If a person will not sleep on his own accord then microsleeps may begin to present themselves.
I can't be sure, but I would say that something such as falling asleep at the wheel could be attributed to microsleeps. this is something that could happen during a blink as no one plans to fall asleep while driving.
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18711696
Pneumologie. 2008 Oct;62(10):595-601. Epub 2008 Aug 18.
[Microsleep, sleepiness and driving performance in patients with sleep apnoea syndrome]
[Article in German]
Rühle KH, Franke KJ, Nilius G.
Klinik für Pneumologie, Helios-Klinik Ambrock, Universität Witten-Herdecke, Hagen. klinik-ambrock.pneumo@t-online.de
Abstract
Especially during monitoring activities or car driving needing high vigilance, episodes of microsleep are extremely dangerous. Microsleep can be described by observing behaviour patterns or electrophysiological parameters. An early recognition of these episodes is desirable. In the automobile industry intensive development is ongoing to register sleepiness and subsequent microsleep during driving to avoid accidents. The monitoring of eyelid frequency and diameter of the pupil (eye tracking) are most promising. Compared with a reference population, the accident risk of patients with sleep-related breathing disorders is more than two-fold higher. But up to now there are no definitive criteria--neither subjective nor objective tests such as, for instance, driving simulators--to predict driving impairment. By means of screening examinations, patients with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS) should be detected because therapy with CPAP normalises the accident rate. A further measure to reduce the risk of accidents is the so-called alertness management where techniques are communicated to detect and avoid sleeping episodes
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Lapses in visuomotor performance are the typical association with microsleep.
There are too many studies on microsleep to post them all. The automanufacturers seem to be putting quite a bit of research into this topic. If you find a study you would like to discuss let me know. I will do the same.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
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Anything for you carol
sleepycarol said:Are you kidding? I mean how can our bodies sleep between blinks?
How would one recognize this in another person?
Can you give us more details Rock?
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That is a great list of studies. I have been digging through them in my spare time tonight. The manufacturing industry has been doing studies on microsleep since the 1970s. This has all been in an effort to increase productivity and reduce accidents. the research done on the reaction times of heavy equipment operators is pretty cool.
I LOVE PUBMED!
Rock Hinkle said:Lapses in visuomotor performance are the typical association with microsleep.
There are too many studies on microsleep to post them all. The automanufacturers seem to be putting quite a bit of research into this topic. If you find a study you would like to discuss let me know. I will do the same.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
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Okay so you aren't kidding Rock!! I knew you weren't, but had never heard of such a thing.
Okay so if someone that can get by on only a few hours of sleep a night (say 3 to 5) could possibly experience these microsleep patterns during the day? (Of course others could as well, but my thought are those that tend to "cheat" sleep nightly).
I find this interesting. How short of duration would be considered microsleep? Could one "sleep" for mere seconds and have it be considered "sleep"?
I could see the relation to driving and having this happen and wrecks occurring. I had wondered about someone falling asleep behind the wheel and how that could happen. I know when my we went to see my son graduate bootcamp in the Marine Corp we were up really early that morning and was involved with that. No time to rest between graduation and having to catch a flight back home. We had a brief lay over in Denver and no way we was going to catch any sleep there. We flew into KCI and then had a two hour trip home in which I was driving. I can't remember ever being so tired. About 40 miles from home, I finally told the kids I simply couldn't drive any more and we were getting a room for the rest of the night (by then it was 4 a.m.). My son, which had slept on the plane and on the drive home said he would finish driving home as he wanted his own bed for a change.
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I am pretty astounded that microsleep is not a bigger topic as well. I found alot of research on the subject stretching back almost 40 years. According to Wikipedia microsleep are short burst ranging from 1-15 seconds. I know that it is not the greatest source. It was however the most reliable of any source that gave a time frame.
In the lab we view EEG data in 30 seconds intervals called epochs. to consider an epoch one of sleep we must see at least 50% or 15 seconds of sleep waves. So microsleep would be any sleep seen under these parameters. In essence I see micro sleep on every study.
sleepycarol said:Okay so you aren't kidding Rock!! I knew you weren't, but had never heard of such a thing.
Okay so if someone that can get by on only a few hours of sleep a night (say 3 to 5) could possibly experience these microsleep patterns during the day? (Of course others could as well, but my thought are those that tend to "cheat" sleep nightly).
I find this interesting. How short of duration would be considered microsleep? Could one "sleep" for mere seconds and have it be considered "sleep"?
I could see the relation to driving and having this happen and wrecks occurring. I had wondered about someone falling asleep behind the wheel and how that could happen. I know when my we went to see my son graduate bootcamp in the Marine Corp we were up really early that morning and was involved with that. No time to rest between graduation and having to catch a flight back home. We had a brief lay over in Denver and no way we was going to catch any sleep there. We flew into KCI and then had a two hour trip home in which I was driving. I can't remember ever being so tired. About 40 miles from home, I finally told the kids I simply couldn't drive any more and we were getting a room for the rest of the night (by then it was 4 a.m.). My son, which had slept on the plane and on the drive home said he would finish driving home as he wanted his own bed for a change.
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I know most teens are sleep deprived -- at least at our school and from my recollection of my kids when they were teens.
Could this happen to students and teachers not be aware of it and wouldn't it impact student performance? Could some of the symptoms of ADD (attention deficit disorder) be caused by this?
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Those are goodquestions Carol.I do not have any answers for you at this time. I am working alone tonight. I will see what I can come up with. I think it important to note that many of the studies listed daydreaming as possible microsleep. This could be important when evaluating the attention spans of children.
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