The Functional Impact of Sleep Deprivation, Sleep Restriction, and Sleep Fragmentation

M.T. Bianchi (ed.), Sleep Deprivation and Disease: Effects on the Body, Brain and Behavior, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-9087-6_2, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 Paradigms of sleep deprivation, sleep restriction, and sleep fragmentation have been utilized to answer fundamental questions about sleep, including how much sleep adults need and the defi cits and recuperation associated with sleep loss. While defi nitive answers to many of these core questions remain, this work has highlighted how sleep is crucial for healthy functioning. Absent, insuffi cient, or fragmented sleep has widespread neurobehavioral and physiological consequences, and also broader social and economic ramifi cations. The present chapter will compare and contrast the functional impacts of sleep deprivation, sleep restriction, and sleep fragmentation in adults, then discuss the implications that this research has on our understanding and conceptualization of sleep need and sleep debt.