Those who have been deprived of sleep can put themselves as well as others at risk when they are required to make quick decisions, according to US researchers.

The study in included about 49 cadets from the military to observe how sleep derivation affected the integration of information. This is a process which relies on gut feeling as well as instantaneous decisions.

Says Tod Max,” a psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, ” it is important to understand this domain of procedural learning because information- integration – the fast and accurate strategy – is critical in situations when soldiers need to make spilt-second decisions based about whether a potential target is an enemy soldier, a civilian or one of their own.” This was stated in university news release.

In many other high profile profession one requires to make quick decisions under tremendous pressure such as the police, fire-fighting observed the authors of the study.

The cadets were asked to perform the information-integration twice, once they were well rested and while they were sleep deprived. One could observe based on the results that moderate amount of sleep deprivation can cause immediately loss of information of thought processes.

The study has been published in Sleep ( November issue).

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