Cardiac autonomic activity during sleep deprivation with and without caffeine administration

Caffeine is often consumed to mitigate degraded alertness associated with sleep deprivation. Both caffeine and sleep deprivation have been implicated in cardiovascular disease, but evidence is largely anecdotal. We determined the effects of sleep deprivation and caffeine on markers of cardiac autonomic activity. Twelve healthy young adults completed an 18-day laboratory study. They were exposed to three 48 h sessions of acute total sleep deprivation (TSD), each separated by three recovery days. In randomized, counter-balanced order, subjects received 0 mg (placebo), 200 mg, or 300 mg of caffeine at 12 h intervals during each sleep deprivation session. Every 2 h during scheduled wakefulness, a 15-minute neurobehavioral task battery was administered, during which heart rate (HR) and the high frequency (HF) component of the HR variability power spectrum (HF-HRV) were measured. Caffeine administration decreased HR and increased HF-HRV, indicating elevated para-sympathetic activity. The 300 mg caffeine dose did not significantly affect autonomic activity to a greater extent than the 200 mg dose. There was no significant effect of 48 h of TSD on HR, whereas there was a small increase across hours awake in HF-HRV. There was no significant interaction of TSD with caffeine. Circadian rhythmicity in HR and HF-HRV surpassed the magnitude of the effects of caffeine and TSD. Caffeine and acute TSD thus produced only modest changes in cardiac autonomic activity, unlikely to have immediate clinical implications in healthy young adults. However, further research is needed to determine the long-term effects of chronic exposure to sleep loss and/or caffeine on cardiac health, and to determine the generalizability of our findings to non-healthy populations.