All-day performance variations in normal and narcoleptic subjects.

This study compared the performance of narcoleptic and control subjects on one psychomotor task, examined the recuperative power of naps in narcoleptic subjects, and evaluated the respective recuperative values of REM and NREM sleep. Ten untreated narcoleptic and eight control subjects repeatedly responded to a choice reaction time task during days with and days without napping. Narcoleptic subjects exhibited low performance levels relative to control subjects on all variables. Napping improved the performance of narcoleptic subjects except for the number of long latency (reaction time greater than 1,000 ms) responses. Finally, performance, particularly on accuracy measures, was better, although not significantly, after NREM naps when compared with REM naps.