Sleep and cognitive performance of African-Americans and European-Americans before and during circadian misalignment produced by an abrupt 9-h delay in the sleep/wake schedule

We conducted two studies of circadian misalignment in non-Hispanic African and European-Americans. In the first, the sleep/wake (light/dark) schedule was advanced 9 h, similar to flying east, and in the second these schedules were delayed 9 h, similar to flying west or sleeping during the day after night work. We confirmed that the free-running circadian period is shorter in African-Americans compared to European-Americans, and found differences in the magnitude and direction of circadian rhythm phase shifts which were related to the circadian period. The sleep and cognitive performance data from the first study (published in this journal) documented the impairment in both ancestry groups due to this extreme circadian misalignment. African-Americans slept less and performed slightly worse during advanced/misaligned days than European-Americans. The current analysis is of sleep and cognitive performance from the second study. Participants were 23 African-Americans and 22 European-Americans (aged 18–44 years). Following four baseline days (8 h time in bed, based on habitual sleep), the sleep/wake schedule was delayed by 9 h for three days. Sleep was monitored using actigraphy. During the last two baseline/aligned days and the first two delayed/misaligned days, beginning 2 h after waking, cognitive performance was assessed every 3 h using the Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics (ANAM) battery. Mixed model ANOVAs assessed the effects of ancestry (African-American or European-American) and condition (baseline/aligned or delayed/misaligned) on sleep and performance. There was decreased sleep and impaired cognitive performance in both ancestry groups during the two delayed/misaligned days relative to baseline/aligned days. Sleep and cognitive performance did not differ between African-Americans and European-Americans during either baseline/aligned or delayed/misaligned days. While our previous work showed that an advance in the sleep/wake schedule impaired the sleep of African-Americans more than European-Americans, delaying the sleep/wake schedule impaired the sleep and cognitive performance of African-Americans and European-Americans equally.