ENIGMA-Sleep: Challenges, opportunities, and the road map.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Genetics
• Sleep Medicine

Background:

• Individual neuroimaging and genetics studies on sleep disorders face limitations like small sample sizes and varied methodologies.
• A large-scale, multi-center approach is needed to harmonize data collection and analysis for reproducible sleep research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce the ENIGMA-Sleep working group, a global collaborative initiative.
• To outline the group's large-scale neuroimaging and genetics studies on sleep quality, deprivation, disorders, and neuropsychiatric conditions.
• To discuss the challenges and opportunities in collaborative sleep medicine research.

Main Methods:

• Leveraging the Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) consortium's collaborative framework.
• Harmonizing data collection, preprocessing, and analysis across multiple international sites.
• Utilizing pre-registered, well-established protocols for data integrity.

Main Results:

• The ENIGMA-Sleep group has initiated large-scale worldwide studies involving institutes from 15 countries.
• Datasets are available for investigating the neurobiology of impaired sleep quality, sleep deprivation consequences, sleep disorder pathophysiology, and sleep disturbances in neuropsychiatric disorders.

Conclusions:

• Collaborative initiatives like ENIGMA-Sleep are essential for overcoming limitations in individual sleep research.
• This approach enhances the power to identify consistent neurobiological findings related to sleep and its disorders.
• Future research will benefit from harmonized protocols and large, diverse datasets for significant advancements in sleep medicine.