New UBCO research takes a closer look at the physiological changes that occur within the motor pathway from the brain to the muscle as a result of sleep deprivation.
Most people, whether they are shift workers, first responders, students, new parents or those working two jobs, have experienced feelings of fatigue through sleep deprivation. And many also know if they are overtired, even the simplest tasks may seem more difficult than usual.
Brian Dalton, an Assistant Professor in UBC Okanagan’s School of Health and Exercise Sciences, says despite the high prevalence of sleep deprivation, little is known about its effects on perceived and performance fatigability.
Perceived fatigability, he explains, refers to how a person feels about the amount of effort required to do a task, such as curling a dumbbell. It’s different than performance fatigability, which is an actual decline in the physical execution of a task. Both can be negatively impacted by lack of sleep, which raises important health, safety and performance concerns for sleep-deprived people.
Dr. Dalton and his team of researchers, including Dr. Chris McNeil and doctoral student Justine Magnuson, recently published an exploratory study that takes a closer look at the physiological changes that occur within the motor pathway from the brain to the muscle as a result of sleep deprivation.
“A person’s perception of the effort needed to perform a physically fatiguing task might be markedly different from that person’s true performance capacity,” says Dr. Dalton. “This is an important consideration given that work and daily life activities are typically carried out based on perceptions of effort and fatigue.”
Read the full story here: UBC Okanagan News