0712 Asymptomatic Objective Sleepiness is Associated with Deficits in Neuropsychological Performance: A General Population Study

Abstract Introduction Prior studies showed that asymptomatic objective sleepiness is protective of hypertension risk. Small experimental studies have shown that objective sleepiness is associated with impaired vigilance performance. The aim of this study was to examine the association of asymptomatic objective sleepiness with neuropsychological performance in individuals without a complaint of excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) in a large general random population sample. Methods From a random, general population sample of 1741 adults of the Penn State Cohort, we included 1428 individuals (51.3% women; aged 49.44±13.45) without cognitive impairment, assessed by Mini Mental State Examination or EDS defined as moderate-to-severe complain of daytime sleepiness/drowsiness and/or irresistible sleep attacks. All subjects underwent 8-hour polysomnography. We created 3 mutually exclusive groups: objective sleepiness was defined as a sleep latency (SL) ≤ 7 minutes; control group 7< SL< 30 minutes; and sleep disturbance as a SL≥ 30 minutes. We compared the groups’ performance on a comprehensive neuropsychological battery that measured processing speed, executive attention, visual memory, and verbal fluency, while controlling for age, sex, race, BMI, years of education, alcohol use, caffeine use, smoking, mental health problems, physical health problems, apnea-hypopnea index and chronic insomnia. Results Compared to controls, the asymptomatic objectively sleepy group showed poorer visual memory performance (p< 0.001) characterized by more errors (p< 0.001), distortions (p< 0.001) and size errors (p< 0.005). The sleep disturbed group showed worse performance in executive attention (p< 0.006) and more visual memory omission errors (p< 0.001). No significant differences were detected in variables such as processing speed or verbal fluency among the three groups. Conclusion Asymptomatic objective sleepiness is associated with deficits in short-term memory, a key component of recollection memory. In contrast, the sleep disturbed group is associated with impaired executive control of attention. Asymptomatic objective sleepiness is associated with specific neuropsychological deficits that may impact on the individuals’ daily function and behavioral methods to reduce this adverse effect should be considered. Support (if any)