Age of Insomnia Onset Correlates with a Reversal of Default Mode Network and Supplementary Motor Cortex Connectivity.
Emiliano Santarnecchi, Chiara Del Bianco, Isabella Sicilia, Davide Momi, Giorgio Di Lorenzo, Salvatore Ferrone, Giulia Sprugnoli, Simone Rossi, Alessandro Rossi
Neural Plasticity April 1, 2018 DOI: 10.1155/2018/3678534 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Case-control functional connectivity fMRI study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 34 |
| Population | 17 drug-naïve patients with primary insomnia and 17 age- and gender-matched healthy controls |
| Measures | functional connectivity fMRI, intrinsic connectivity contrast (ICC) |
| Topics | Default mode network |
| Keywords | Motor cortex Nerve net Humans Brain mapping Age of onset Adolescent Female Young adult Self report |
| Key findings | Primary insomnia patients showed increased resting-state connectivity in the bilateral visual cortex and reduced visual cortex–temporal pole connectivity compared with controls. DMN–SMA connectivity strength correlated with age of onset (R2 = 41%) and illness duration (R2 = 21%), which the authors interpret as evidence that chronic sleep deprivation, particularly early onset, disrupts the normal negative correlation between DMN and SMA. |
Abstract
Insomnia might occur as result of increased cognitive and physiological arousal caused by acute or long acting stressors and associated cognitive rumination. This might lead to alterations in brain connectivity patterns as those captured by functional connectivity fMRI analysis, leading to potential insight about primary insomnia (PI) pathophysiology as well as the impact of long-term exposure to sleep deprivation. We investigated changes of voxel-wise connectivity patterns in a sample of 17 drug-naïve PI patients and 17 age-gender matched healthy controls, as well as the relationship between brain connectivity and age of onset, illness duration, and severity. Results showed a significant increase in resting-state functional connectivity of the bilateral visual cortex in PI patients, associated with decreased connectivity between the visual cortex and bilateral temporal pole. Regression with clinical scores originally unveiled a pattern of increased local connectivity as measured by intrinsic connectivity contrast (ICC), specifically resembling the default mode network (DMN). Additionally, age of onset was found to be correlated with the connectivity of supplementary motor area (SMA), and the strength of DMN←→SMA connectivity was significantly correlated with both age of onset (R2 = 41%) and disease duration (R2 = 21%). Chronic sleep deprivation, but most importantly early insomnia onset, seems to have a significant disruptive effect over the physiological negative correlation between DMN and SMA, a well-known fMRI marker of attention performance in humans. This suggests the need for more in-depth investigations on the prevention and treatment of connectivity changes and associated cognitive and psychological deficits in PI patients.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on default mode network, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Functional connectivity of default mode network components: Correlation, anticorrelation, and causality Healthy subjects | 2008 | Observational study using resting-state fMRI and seed correlation analysis | |
| Patterns of Brain Activity Supporting Autobiographical Memory, Prospection, and Theory of Mind, and Their Relationship to the Default Mode Network Healthy subjects | 2009 | Experimental study using fMRI | |
| Dynamic reconfiguration of the default mode network during narrative comprehension Human subjects | 2016 | Experimental study | |
| Broadband Cortical Desynchronization Underlies the Human Psychedelic State Healthy human participants | 2013 | Experimental study | |
| The brain on art: intense aesthetic experience activates the default mode network Human observers | 2012 | Observational study with fMRI and behavioral analysis |