Sleep Traits Causally Affect the Brain Cortical Structure: A Mendelian Randomization Study

Yanjing Chen; Shiyi Lyu; Wang Xiao; Sijie Yi; Ping Liu; Jun Liu

doi:10.3390/biomedicines11082296

Sleep Traits Causally Affect the Brain Cortical Structure: A Mendelian Randomization Study

Biomedicines. 2023 Aug 18;11(8):2296. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines11082296.

Authors

Yanjing Chen¹, Shiyi Lyu¹, Wang Xiao², Sijie Yi¹, Ping Liu¹, Jun Liu^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiology, Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410011, China.
² Department of General Surgery, Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410011, China.
³ Clinical Research Center for Medical Imaging in Hunan Province, Changsha 410011, China.

Abstract

Background: Brain imaging results in sleep deprived patients showed structural changes in the cerebral cortex; however, the reasons for this phenomenon need to be further explored. Methods: This MR study evaluated causal associations between morningness, ease of getting up, insomnia, long sleep, short sleep, and the cortex structure. Results: At the functional level, morningness increased the surface area (SA) of cuneus with global weighted (beta(b) (95% CI): 32.63 (10.35, 54.90), p = 0.004). Short sleep increased SA of the lateral occipital with global weighted (b (95% CI): 394.37(107.89, 680.85), p = 0.007. Short sleep reduced cortical thickness (TH) of paracentral with global weighted (OR (95% CI): -0.11 (-0.19, -0.03), p = 0.006). Short sleep reduced TH of parahippocampal with global weighted (b (95% CI): -0.25 (-0.42, -0.07), p = 0.006). No pleiotropy was detected. However, none of the Bonferroni-corrected p values of the causal relationship between cortical structure and the five types of sleep traits met the threshold. Conclusions: Our results potentially show evidence of a higher risk association between neuropsychiatric disorders and not only paracentral and parahippocampal brain areas atrophy, but also an increase in the middle temporal zone. Our findings shed light on the associations of cortical structure with the occurrence of five types of sleep traits.

Keywords: brain cortical structure; brain cortical surface area (SA); cortical thickness (TH); mendelian randomization; sleep.

Grants and funding

The study was supported by grants from Science and Technology Innovation Program of Hunan Province (No. 2021RC4016 to J.L.) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of Central South University (2023ZZTS0880). The funding organizations play no further role in study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation, and paper writing.