Background: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) affects both adults and children, likely mediated by the deficits of various brain regions. The association between structural alterations in the brain and OSA syndrome have been reported in adult patients, but the corresponding evidence for OSA children is still limited.
Objective: The proposed study aimed to investigate the structural alterations in the brain of children with OSA, with focus on basal ganglia structures.
Methods: We recruited 25 OSA children (aged 10.3±1.5 years) and 30 healthy children (aged 10.1±1.8 years) with T1-weighted brain MRI and performed automatic segmentation of their brains. The shape alterations of the basal ganglia structures for OSA syndrome was determined by comparison of the OSA group and control group with surface-based shape analysis.
Results: Differences in the morphometry of the left thalamus and the left pallidum were found between the OSA group and control group. Compared to the control group, the OSA group presented significant atrophy in the ventral posterior nucleus and the medial dorsal nucleus of the left thalamus, while regional dilation was found in both the internal and external segments of the left pallidum.
Conclusion: These findings identified the association between the structural deficits of the thalamus and OSA syndrome in children, which was consistent with the existing findings in OSA adults. In addition, the present study provided new insights to the distinctive pattern of structural changes of the pallidum in pediatric OSA when compared to adult OSA.
Keywords: MRI; Obstructive sleep apnea; children; pallidum; shape analysis; thalamus.