Sleep debt Sleep debt is the effect of not getting enough sleep; a large debt causes mental, emotional and physical fatigue. Sleep debt results in diminished abilities to perform high-level cognitive functions. Neurophysiological and functional imaging studies have demonstrated that frontal regions of the brain are particularly responsive to homeostatic sleep pressure. Scientists do not agree on how much sleep debt it is possible to accumulate; whether it is accumulated against an individual's average sleep or some other benchmark; nor on whether the prevalence of sleep debt among adults has changed appreciably in the industrialized world in recent decades.
Sleep debt is cumulative. Subjectively, however, humans seem to reach maximum sleepiness after 30 hours of waking. One neurochemical indicator of sleep debt is Adenosine, a neurotransmitter that inhibits many of the bodily processes…
