Sleep is not just a rest but an important physiological process responsible for the restoration and regulation of brain function. Sleep deprivation refers to a lack of sleep compared to the amount of sleep required. College students tend to have insuf...
Sleep is not just a rest but an important physiological process responsible for the restoration and regulation of brain function. Sleep deprivation refers to a lack of sleep compared to the amount of sleep required. College students tend to have insufficient sleep time and late intake time due to lifestyle and life patterns. Therefore, this study investigated how mean sleep duration in a week affect auditory brainstem responses and speech perception in noise in college students.
Forty students aged 20-29 years (20 males, 20 females; mean age 24.62 ± 2.7 years) completed the Consensus Sleep Diary (CSD) for 7 days. Based on mean sleep duration across the seven-day period, participants were assigned to a sleep-deprived group (≤5 h; n=20) or a sufficient-sleep group (≥7 h; n=20). Auditory brain responses (ABR) and speech-in-noise performance were obtained from the sleep-deprivated and sufficient groups Independent-samples t-tests and Pearson correlations were conducted using SPSS Program, with a significance level set at α =.05..
Wave V latency was significantly longer in the sleep-deprived group than in the sufficient-sleep group. The bilateral mean latency was 5.548 ± 0.169 ms in the sleep-deprived group and 5.200 ± 0.107 ms in the sufficient-sleep group (p<.001), and the same pattern was observed for each ear (both p<.001).
Wave V amplitude was significantly larger in the sleep-deprived group (bilateral mean p=.011) and showed a negative correlation with sleep duration (bilateral mean r = −.379, p=.016). For the binaural DIN condition, a significant group difference was observed (p<.001), with the sleep-deprived group exhibiting a lower (more negative) DIN SRT than the sufficient-sleep group (−9.477 ± 0.860 vs. −8.145 ± 0.842 dB SNR). Sleep duration was positively correlated with DIN SRT (r=.578, p<.001). In contrast, neither group differences nor correlations with sleep duration were significant in the LNRS(Left Noise Right speech) and LSRN(LSRN=Left Speech Right Noise) conditions.
These findings suggest that sleep deprivation may affect brainstem activity and speech performance in noise although there are normal hearing.