Altered long‐ and short‐range functional connectivity density associated with poor sleep quality in patients with chronic insomnia disorder: A resting‐state fMRI study
Fuqing Zhou, Yanyan Zhu, Yujun Zhu, Muhua Huang, Jian Jiang, Laichang He, Su-Hua Huang, Xianjun Zeng, Honghan Gong
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Previous neuroimaging studies have suggested that brain functional impairment and hyperarousal occur during the daytime among patients with chronic insomnia disorder (CID); however, alterations to the brain's intrinsic functional architecture and their association with sleep quality have not yet been documented. METHODS: In this study, our aim was to investigate the insomnia-related alterations to the intrinsic connectome in patients with CID (n = 27) at resting state, with a data-driven approach based on graph theory assessment and functional connectivity density (FCD), which can be interpreted as short-range (intraregional) or long-range (interregional) mapping. RESULTS: Compared with healthy controls with good sleep, CID patients showed significantly decreased long-range FCD in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortices and the putamen. These patients also showed decreased short-range FCD in their multimodal-processing regions, executive control network, and supplementary motor-related areas. Furthermore, several regions showed increased short-range FCD in patients with CID, implying hyper-homogeneity of local activity. CONCLUSIONS: Together, these findings suggest that insufficient sleep during chronic insomnia widely affects cortical functional activities, including disrupted FCD and increased short-range FCD, which is associated with poor sleep quality.