Association between sleep structure and amnesic mild cognitive impairment in patients with insomnia disorder: a case-control study

Abstract

Study objectives: To examine the association between sleep structure and amnesic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) in patients with insomnia disorder.

Methods: A total of 256 patients with insomnia disorder were diagnosed by neurologists, 45 of whom were diagnosed with aMCI according to the Petersen criteria, and 45 participants with intact cognition were chosen as controls matched for age and education. A case-control study was conducted to compare sleep structure between aMCI and control patients with insomnia disorder. We evaluated self-reported sleep problems by the Insomnia Severity Index and objective sleep features by polysomnography. Logistic regression models were used to estimate the associations between sleep parameters and aMCI in patients with insomnia disorder.

Results: There was no significant difference in Insomnia Severity Index scores between the aMCI and control groups. In the logistic regression after adjustment for covariates, people with a longer sleep duration (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 0.56, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.36-0.89), greater sleep efficiency (aOR = 0.50, 95% CI: 0.32-0.77), and a higher percentage of total sleep time in stage 3 of non-rapid eye movement sleep (N3%) (aOR = 0.02, 95% CI: 0.01-0.15) have a lower relative probability of having aMCI. By contrast, higher N1% (aOR = 2.28, 95% CI: 1.36-3.82) and wake after sleep onset (aOR = 1.31, 95% CI: 1.11-1.55) may be risk factors for aMCI in patients with insomnia.

Conclusions: In patients with insomnia disorder, sleep duration, sleep fragmentation, sleep efficiency, N1% and N3% were independently associated with the presence of aMCI. In the clinical setting, if patients with insomnia show much more serious abnormalities in these sleep indices, clinicians should pay attention to their cognitive function. In-depth research would also be worthwhile to elaborate the causality between sleep and cognitive decline.

Keywords: amnesic mild cognitive impairment; case-control study; insomnia disorder; polysomnography.