The forced deprivation of someone's necessary amount of sleep has been used in the interrogation of terrorist suspects to make them more amenable to providing information or confessions.
There is some debate about whether sleep deprivation is a form of torture or one of a number of "stress and duress" techniques, and thus whether it is a legal and ethically acceptable in interrogation. According to the United Nations, sleep deprivation is a form of torture.
The effects of sleep deprivation range from irritability, confusion and a decreased ability to concentrate, to loss of consciousness resulting from the failure of red blood cells to transport oxygen to the brain.
Interrogators deprive suspects of sleep using several techniques, including flashing lights, loud music or extremely cold temperatures.
Sleep deprivation has been used in a number of wartime settings, not only those involving terrorist suspects. The Soviet KGB plied sleep deprivation techniques during the Cold War, the Japanese deprived captured prisoners of sleep during World War II, and the British Army allegedly used the technique on IRA suspects in the 1970s.
Also see: