Relationship Between Sleep Maturation and Brain Structural Growth in Infants from Birth to 27 Months
Poster No:
942
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Yiding Gui1, Weiyan Yin2, Zhengwang Wu3, Gang Li3, Li Wang3, Seoyoon Cho1, Tengfei Li3, Guanghai Wang4, Yujiao Deng4, Fan Jiang4, Weili Lin2
Institutions:
1University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel hill, NC, 2UNC Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 3UNC-CH, CHAPEL HILL, NC, 4Shanghai Children's Medical Center, Shanghai, Shanghai
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Sleep, one of the most crucial activities during infancy, plays a fundamental role in early development. The first two years represent a critical period for sleep development, when children develop adult-like sleep patterns. Concurrently, the brain also undergoes rapid development during this time, reaching 80-90% of the adult volume. While previous studies have highlighted the close interplay of sleep and brain maturation, few have explored the neural correlatives between sleep and brain structural development in infancy. We leveraged the rich data collected by the Baby Connectome Project (BCP) to investigate the relationships between sleep and brain structural development in 0-to-27-month-olds.
Methods:
218 infants (460 visits) from the BCP cohort were included (Howell et al., 2019). Sleep was assessed using the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire (Sadeh, 2004), including total sleep duration, sleep onset latency, and night waking numbers. Brain images were processed using the iBEAT toolbox (Wang et al., 2023) and aligned to the UNC 4D infant cortical surface atlases. Cortical volume and cortical thickness (CT) (surface-based analysis) and subcortical volumes (volume-based analysis) were outcome measures.
General additive models were used to control for age effects for all sleep and brain metrics. Subjects were grouped into three age groups (0-6, 6-12, 12-27 months), reflecting key developmental stages. Linear mixed-effect models were used by controlling the sex, site, race, gestational age, maternal education, household income, breastfed or not, and intracranial volume. All reported p-values in the Results section were FDR corrected for multiple comparisons.
General additive models were used to control for age effects for all sleep and brain metrics. Subjects were grouped into three age groups (0-6, 6-12, 12-27 months), reflecting key developmental stages. Linear mixed-effect models were used by controlling the sex, site, race, gestational age, maternal education, household income, breastfed or not, and intracranial volume. All reported p-values in the Results section were FDR corrected for multiple comparisons.
Results:
All sleep metrics declined rapidly in the first 6 months, followed by a continuing decline but with a slower pace, consistent with results reported in the literature (Galland et al., 2012),. (Figure1).
Age specific associations between brain structural phenotypes and sleep parameters were observed. Total sleep duration was positively associated with whole brain average CT (β=0.01, p=0.042) (Figure 2A) during the first 6 months of life. More specifically, 19 of 70 cortical regions were positively associated with total sleep duration (p<0.05, Figure 2B). In addition, CT of the left lingual cortex (β=0.130, p=0.034) and right cuneus cortex (β=0.107, p=0.034) were significantly positively correlated with sleep onset latency.
In 6-to-12-month-olds, night-waking number was negatively correlated with subcortical volumes, including the bilateral putamen (Left β=-49.65, p=0.047; Right β=-50.87, p=0.046), right hippocampus (β=-33.89, p<0.001), and right amygdala (β=-9.71, p=0.030). In contrast, night-waking number was positively associated with the right pars orbitalis cortex (β=48.90, P=0.048).
Finally, no significant association between sleep and brain structural measurements was found in 12-to-27-month-olds.
Age specific associations between brain structural phenotypes and sleep parameters were observed. Total sleep duration was positively associated with whole brain average CT (β=0.01, p=0.042) (Figure 2A) during the first 6 months of life. More specifically, 19 of 70 cortical regions were positively associated with total sleep duration (p<0.05, Figure 2B). In addition, CT of the left lingual cortex (β=0.130, p=0.034) and right cuneus cortex (β=0.107, p=0.034) were significantly positively correlated with sleep onset latency.
In 6-to-12-month-olds, night-waking number was negatively correlated with subcortical volumes, including the bilateral putamen (Left β=-49.65, p=0.047; Right β=-50.87, p=0.046), right hippocampus (β=-33.89, p<0.001), and right amygdala (β=-9.71, p=0.030). In contrast, night-waking number was positively associated with the right pars orbitalis cortex (β=48.90, P=0.048).
Finally, no significant association between sleep and brain structural measurements was found in 12-to-27-month-olds.
·Figure 1. Infant sleep development from 0 to 27 months
·Figure 2. Association between infant sleep metrics and brain structural development in 0-to-6-month-olds
Conclusions:
Our findings revealed age-specific associations between sleep maturation and early brain development. Cortical thickness, reflecting synaptic density, develops most rapidly in the first six months and correlated with total sleep duration, underscoring its roles in synaptogenesis during this critical period (Li et al., 2017). In addition, sleep onset latency is associated with CT of the cuneus and lingual gyrus implicated in sensory gating and visual processing, highlighting the roles of sleep initiation and visual functional development. After 6 months, night-waking is associated with the development of the putamen, amygdala, and hippocampus, which have been shown to undergo rapid increase in volume during this period (Chen et al., 2023). Together, our results highlights the importance of sleep health to early brain development during a critical period of early brain development.
Lifespan Development:
Early life, Adolescence, Aging 1
Normal Brain Development: Fetus to Adolescence
Neuroanatomy, Physiology, Metabolism and Neurotransmission:
Normal Development
Perception, Attention and Motor Behavior:
Sleep and Wakefulness 2
Keywords:
Cortex
Development
PEDIATRIC
Sleep
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Provide references using APA citation style.
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