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Thalamocortical functional connectivity in patients with insomnia using resting-state fMRI
Nambeom Kim1, Eunsoo Won1, Seo-Eun Cho1
1From the Department of Biomedical Engineering Research Center (N. Kim); Department of Psychiatry (S.-G. Kang, S.-E. Cho), Gil Medical Center, College of Medicine; and Department of Radiological Science (C.-K. Kang), College of Health Science, Gachon University, Incheon, Republic of Korea; Department of Psychiatry, CHA Bundang Medical Center, CHA University, Seongnam, Republic of Korea (E. Won); Department of Psychiatry, Chaum, Seoul, Republic of Korea (E. Won).
Background:
Insomnia is a common disorder that affects a vast number of patients; the hyperarousal theory of insomnia postulates that patients with insomnia are physiologically activated not only at nighttime but also during the daytime. We aimed to investigate the differences in the resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) of the thalamus with cortical areas between patients with insomnia disorder and healthy controls.
Methods:
All participants completed clinical questionnaires and underwent portable polysomnography and resting-state fMRI.
Results:
Patients in the insomnia group (n = 50) showed increased RSFC between the thalamus and right medial superior frontal area, bilateral middle temporal areas, left rectus and right parahippocampal areas compared with controls (n = 42) after controlling for age, sex and education level. Among the pairs that showed increased connectivity, several functional connections were negatively correlated with sleep efficiency, measured by polysomnography.Limitations: We used a small sample size.
Conclusion:
We consider these results on increased thalamocortical hyperactivity in brain areas related to sensory functions as providing evidence for the hyperarousal theory of insomnia.
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