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Increased interhemispheric resting-state functional connectivity in healthy participants with insomnia symptoms: A

Xuhua Li1, Shougang Guo, Chunjuan Wang

  • 1Department of Neurology, Linyi People's Hospital, Linyi Department of Neurology, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University, Jinan, China.

Medicine
|July 7, 2017
PubMed

Insights

Healthy individuals with insomnia show altered brain connectivity between hemispheres, particularly in areas related to salience and arousal. This study highlights impaired interhemispheric coordination in insomnia, impacting key brain networks.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroimaging
  • Sleep Medicine
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

  • Recent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) studies report insular cortex and thalamus abnormalities in healthy adults with insomnia symptoms.
  • Limited understanding exists regarding interhemispheric functional interactions in healthy individuals experiencing insomnia.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate alterations in functional connectivity between bilateral cerebral hemispheres in healthy adults with insomnia symptoms.

Main Methods:

  • A randomized trial involving 27 healthy participants with insomnia symptoms and 27 matched controls without insomnia.
  • Utilized voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) to assess functional homotopy between symmetrical interhemispheric voxels via rsfMRI.

Main Results:

  • Significantly increased VMHC was observed in participants with insomnia symptoms within the bilateral thalamus/posterior insula, fusiform, middle cingulate gyrus, inferior parietal lobe, and postcentral gyrus.
  • No regions exhibited decreased VMHC in the insomnia group.
  • Positive correlations were found between anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) VMHC values and sleep disturbance scores across all participants.

Conclusions:

  • Insomnia is linked to significant impairments in interhemispheric coordination.
  • These coordination deficits involve key brain networks including the default mode (ACC), salience (insula), hyperarousal (thalamus/posterior insula), and visual (fusiform) networks.
Abstract

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