Night duty and decreased brain activity of medical residents: A wearable optical topography study

ABSTRACTBackground: Overwork, fatigue, and sleep deprivation due to night duty are likely to be detrimental to the performance of medical residents and can consequently affect patient safety.Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the possibility of deterioration of cerebral function of sleep-deprived, fatigued residents using neuroimaging techniques.Design: Six medical residents were instructed to draw blood from artificial vessels installed on the arm of a normal cooperator. Blood was drawn at a similar time of the day, before and after night duty. To assess sleep conditions during night duty, the participants wore actigraphy units throughout the period of night duty. Changes in cerebral hemodynamics, during the course of drawing blood, were measured using a wearable optical topography system.Results: The visual analogue scale scores after night duty correlated negatively with sleep efficiency during the night duty (ρ = −0.812, p = 0.050). The right prefrontal cortex activity was significantly...