Gene predicts sleepy performance
By Brian Vastag
Variants of a circadian-rhythm gene predict how well people perform mental tasks when deprived of sleep, according to researchers at the University of Surrey in England.
Earlier studies established that the gene, period3, influences whether an individual is a morning person or a night person. The new work shows that the gene also affects attention span, reaction time, and short-term memory in sleep-deprived people.
Period3 comes in two variants, short and long, and each person carries two copies of the gene. Derk-Jan Dijk and his colleagues studied 24 people carrying either two long versions or two short versions.