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P1‐415: Sleep Quality is Associated with Functional Connectivity of Medial Prefrontal Cortex in Healthy Middle‐Aged Adults
Author(s) -
Song Zhuang,
Scullin Michael,
Park Denise C.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1016/j.jalz.2016.06.1168
Subject(s) - prefrontal cortex , precuneus , pittsburgh sleep quality index , orbitofrontal cortex , neuroscience , psychology , resting state fmri , audiology , sleep (system call) , medicine , sleep quality , cognition , computer science , operating system
Background: Sleep may play an important role in aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is important for slow wave sleep and memory consolidation but also vulnerable to early amyloid deposition. We hypothesized that poor sleep quality, as early as middle age, could affect functional connectivity of mPFC in cognitively normal adults. Methods: Cognitively normal middle-age adults (aged 40-59, MMSE1⁄42630, N1⁄417) were enrolled from the Dallas Lifespan Brain Study. We assessed sleep quality with the global score of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Whole brain resting-state fMRI data were acquired and preprocessed with standard procedures. Seedbased functional connectivity of bilateral mPFC was measured in thewhole brain using Pearson’s correlation of the entire time series. General linear modeling was used to assess the relationship between sleep quality and the mPFC connectivity, for which age was controlled (false discovery correction for clusters, p<0.05). Results:As expected, poor sleep quality was related to the mPFC connectivity. Specifically we found decreased connectivity between mPFC and a cluster region in bilateral orbitofrontal cortex (7974.75 mm). Additionally, poor sleep quality was associated with greater mPFC connectivity to cluster regions in bilateral supplementary motor area (6131.13 mm), left superior frontal cortex (4930.63 mm), and bilateral precuneus (3558.63 mm). A further confirmation of the reported effects was provided by a post-hoc analysis that the mPFC connectivity to all the four cluster regions was significantly associated with the sleep quality score (R>0.46; p<0.005), when age was controlled. The sleep quality score was not associated with any cognitive measures (p>0.25). Conclusions: Poor sleep quality in cognitively normal middleaged adults was associated with decreased intrinsic functional connectivity of mPFC to the orbitofrontal cortex, and with increased connectivity to supplementary motor, superior frontal, and precuneus. All of these frontal regions as well as the precuneus are important memory structures. Connectivity differences related to poor sleep quality in middle-aged could be an early link between sleep disturbance and AD-related neuropathology later in life. Further studies are need to confirm these findings.