Estimating that people sleep on average up to two hours less over the last decades, sleepiness and fatigue need to be considered as significant societal problems of the modern world. Jurisdiction is precise on how to deal with overtired offenders since they were not allowed to use machines or vehicles in the first place, similar to drunk individuals or consumers of illicit drugs. In contrast to alcohol or illicit drug use, however, there are no quick roadside or workplace tests as objective (analytical) biomarkers for sleepiness. Investigators hypothesize that increasing sleep drive or impaired wakefulness can be assessed by qualitative or quantitative fluctuations of certain metabolites in biological specimens, e.g., accumulation or decrease of endogenous substances related to sleep debt. Thus, this sleep study provides the necessary biological samples of either sleep-deprived, sleep-restricted, or control subjects, which are then analysed for appropriate metabolite biomarkers utilizing an untargeted metabolomics approach. In addition to established impairment tests, a state of the art driving simulator will be employed to objectively measure driving performance under all study conditions. Participants will also rate their subjective sleepiness using validated questionnaires.
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Changes in metabolite concentrations in oral fluid quantified by liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry
Timeframe: After arrival at study site (6pm, baseline), repeatedly during scheduled wakefulness (8am, 12pm, 4pm, 7pm, 11pm), and morning after recovery night of 8 hours of sleep (8am)