Biomarkers of Fatigue: Ranking Mental Fatigue Susceptibility

摘要

This is the mental fatigue susceptibility ranking portion of a study seeking to determine metabolic biomarkers for resistance to fatigue. A total of 23 paid subjects completed a fatigue protocol involving informed consent, medical screening, Tuesday and Wednesday evening training on cognitive tasks, providing five urine samples (beginning with a Friday morning baseline), refresher training, and an experimental session (with six, four hour long blocks) starting Friday evening. Subjects showed the expected declines in performance during the 36-hour, 15-minute period of sleep deprivation without caffeine. The simple change from baseline results on the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) is recommended as the primary classifier for mental fatigue susceptibility. The next part of the study will use nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, liquid chromatography (LC), and mass spectrometry (MS) of the urine samples to determine if biomarkers are indicators of mental fatigue susceptibility.