The effect of acute sleep deprivation on the activity of attention supporting brain areas

More than 30% of adults suffer from sleep deprivation (SD). SD has adverse effects on cognitive functions such as attention. In psychology, attention is defined as the concentration of awareness on some events to exclude other stimuli. It has a very important role in regulating the human behavior. Although several studies have investigated the alteration in activity of different attention supporting brain regions following SD, however, these effects are not still fully addressed. Considering the significance of attention in learning and directing the human behavior and regarding the high prevalence of SD, here we review the consequences of acute SD on activity and connectivity of different regions involved in the attention processing by focusing on neuroimaging studies.