Sleep Health and White Matter Integrity in the UK Biobank

Many people experience impaired sleep health, yet knowledge about its neurobiological correlates is limited. As previous studies have found associations between white matter integrity and several sleep traits, white matter integrity could be causally implicated in poor sleep health. However, these studies were often limited by small sample sizes. In this study, we examine associations between multiple indices of white matter integrity and sleep health in 29,114 UK Biobank participants. Late chronotype, daytime sleepiness, insomnia symptoms and, most extensively, long sleep duration were independently associated with diffusion MRI markers of reduced white matter integrity. Previous findings showing an association between insomnia symptoms and decreased fractional anisotropy (FA) in the anterior internal capsule could not be replicated. To our knowledge, the current analysis is the first study to find an association between long sleep duration and impaired microstructural white matter integrity. Previous assumptions concerning the role of white matter integrity for insomnia are challenged.