Effects of Vigil on Human Circadian Rhythms: Normative Data
Abstract
A vigil of up to 45 hours does not destroy circadian cycles in physiological and subjective mood scales, but some rhythms in task performances disappeared with vigil. Vigil does, however, alter some basic parameters of circadian rhythmicity. It tends to reduce strength of rhythmicity and most importantly, to create lengthening of 95% confidence arc for acrophase angles, resulting in appreciably larger 95% confidence ellipse. Thus, major altering effects of vigil of two nights seem to be in a greater scatter of acrophase angles among the individual subjects. Such a greater scatter in time of minimum and maximum due to vigil would result in reduction of amplitude when averages across subjects were plotted along time of day, and also in failure to find a significant cosinor for a group, even though individual subjects might have somewhat reduced but still significant rhythmicity. Relationship between oral temperature and subjective mood and pulse seems to continue undisturbed during the vigil, but correlation between oral temperature and task performance did not survive a process of remaining awake. Findings suggest that more attention must be paid to individual susceptibility to vigil in circadian cycle study.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 1979
- Accession Number
- ADA118277
Entities
People
- Carl E. Englund
- Cheryl L. Spinweber
- Julie Moses
- Paul Naitoh
Organizations
- Naval Health Research Center