The study showed test subjects had diminished short-term memory,
counting skills and cognitive abilities during the groggy period
upon awakening known as sleep inertia, said CU-Boulder Assistant
Professor Kenneth Wright, lead study author. The new study has
implications for medical, safety and transportation workers who
are often called upon to perform critical tasks immediately
after waking, since cognitive deficiencies following 24 hours of
sleep deprivation have previously been shown to be comparable to
the effects of alcohol intoxication, he said. The study appears
in the Jan. 11 issue of the Journal of the American Medical
Association. Study authors included Wright and Adam Wertz of CU-
Boulder's integrative physiology department and Joseph Ronda and
Charles Czeisler of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston,
which is affiliated with Harvard Medical School. "This is the
first time anyone has quantified the effects of sleep inertia,"
Wright said. "We found the cognitive skills of test subjects
were worse u