Ya, those are around the 3-4 mark. That was part of the "not pretty." :-D
And 5 is an estimate based on a comparative timeline to test animals. We've not actually killed humans to test this... >.> :p
120 hours is the approximate point the human brain can no longer tell your lungs to breath, or your heart to beat. Again, it would be nearly impossible to drag a human to that depth of sleep deprivation... The animals were hard enough :-D
World record is 449 hours (over 18 days), scientifically verified record stands at 264 hours (eleven days), so your approximation is way off
Claimed record is 33 years but there is no verification for that.
(shrug) just relaying what I was taught in class. During REM deprivation studies they were unable to keep the patient from initiating sleep going through day 3, and the patients were going completely out of their mind. They ended the study, yanked half the EEG wires off themselves, and the techs heard a thump in the hall. They were in REM, barely made it out the door. Put them in the hospital, slept most of a day.
Based on comparable studies where we shocked different animals the moment sleep was detected, the estimate was the human brain would shut down around day 5.
The study you mentioned was not mentioned in any of my schooling, or the 20 hours of CME I completed over the last couple months.
Gunna have to look that up. Sounds like it should be a fun read, based on how quickly patients degraded in the previous studies :p
Vitamin supplements and different infusions can lengthen possible times, as well as a couple minutes catnaps here and there. None of which was allowed in the studies I was referring too,just normal meals and water. Basically the tech sees the first seconds of sleep, hits the "patient arouser" :p
Edit: although, now that you mention it, that fatal form of insomnia does end with the last couple weeks getting nearly none/zero sleep, so I can see those estimates they made being off. Forgotten about that.