The Relationship between Brain Morphology and Polysomnography in Healthy Good Sleepers

Matthias A Reinhard, Wolfram Regen, Chiara Baglioni, Christoph Nissen, Bernd Feige, Jürgen Hennig, Dieter Riemann and Kai Spiegelhalder

PLOS ONE, 2014, vol. 9, issue 10, 1-7

Abstract: Background: Normal sleep continuity and architecture show remarkable inter-individual variability. Previous studies suggest that brain morphology may explain inter-individual differences in sleep variables. Method: Thirty-eight healthy subjects spent two consecutive nights at the sleep laboratory with polysomnographic monitoring. Furthermore, high-resolution T1-weighted MRI datasets were acquired in all participants. EEG sleep recordings were analyzed using standard sleep staging criteria and power spectral analysis. Using the FreeSurfer software for automated segmentation, 174 variables were determined representing the volume and thickness of cortical segments and the volume of subcortical brain areas. Regression analyses were performed to examine the relationship with polysomnographic and spectral EEG power variables. Results: The analysis did not provide any support for the a-priori formulated hypotheses of an association between brain morphology and polysomnographic variables. Exploratory analyses revealed that the thickness of the left caudal anterior cingulate cortex was positively associated with EEG beta2 power (24–32 Hz) during REM sleep. The volume of the left postcentral gyrus was positively associated with periodic leg movements during sleep (PLMS). Conclusions: The function of the anterior cingulate cortex as well as EEG beta power during REM sleep have been related to dreaming and sleep-related memory consolidation, which may explain the observed correlation. Increased volumes of the postcentral gyrus may be the result of increased sensory input associated with PLMS. However, due to the exploratory nature of the corresponding analyses, these results have to be replicated before drawing firm conclusions.

Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0109336 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 09336&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0109336

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0109336

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().