ABSTRACT
The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of partial sleep deprivation on the cognitive status and alertness of medical students using auditory event related potential (ERP) and auditory reaction time (RT) using sleep questionnaire, Stanford Sleepiness Scale (SSS), auditory ERP (P300) and RT. Sleep time was significantly shorter in the test condition as compared to the baseline values (p<0.001). Significantly higher values on the SSS (p<0.05) were found after sleep restriction. The P300 latency and amplitude significantly decreased (p<0.01 and p<0.001 respectively) when the test values were compared to the baseline. RT also showed a significant decrease (p<0.001) in the test condition as compared to the baseline values. However, no significant correlation could be ascertained between SSS and P300 amplitude and latency as well as RT. This study demonstrates that partial sleep deprivation produces variable effects on the cognitive status of medical students as reflected by the decrease in P300 amplitude and latency. Alertness of medical students seemed to show an improvement as reflected by the decrease in RT.