Division of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8575, Japan.
Neuroimage. 2012 Mar;60(1):471-5. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.11.072. Epub 2011 Dec 14.
Sleep is essential for living beings, and sleep loss has been shown to affect hippocampal structure and function in rats by inhibiting cell proliferation and neurogenesis in this region of the brain. We aimed to analyze the correlation between sleep duration and the hippocampal volume using brain magnetic resonance images of 290 healthy children aged 5-18 years. We examined the volume of gray matter, white matter, and the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) space in the brain using a fully automated and established neuroimaging technique, voxel-based morphometry, which enabled global analysis of brain structure without bias towards any specific brain region while permitting the identification of potential differences or abnormalities in brain structures. We found that the regional gray matter volume of the bilateral hippocampal body was significantly positively correlated with sleep duration during weekdays after adjusting for age, sex, and intracranial volume. Our results indicated that sleep duration affects the hippocampal regional gray matter volume of healthy children. These findings advance our understanding of the importance of sleep habits in the daily lives of healthy children.
睡眠对于生物来说至关重要，研究表明，睡眠剥夺会通过抑制大脑中海马区的细胞增殖和神经发生，影响该区域的结构和功能。我们旨在通过对 290 名 5-18 岁健康儿童的脑磁共振成像进行分析，研究睡眠时间与海马体体积之间的相关性。我们使用一种全自动的、已建立的神经影像学技术——基于体素的形态测量学，对大脑的灰质、白质和脑脊液（CSF）空间体积进行了检测。这种技术可以在不偏向任何特定脑区的情况下，对大脑结构进行全局分析，同时还可以识别出脑结构中可能存在的差异或异常。我们发现，在校正年龄、性别和颅内体积后，双侧海马体的区域灰质体积与工作日的睡眠时间呈显著正相关。我们的研究结果表明，睡眠时间会影响健康儿童的海马体区域灰质体积。这些发现增进了我们对健康儿童日常生活中睡眠习惯重要性的理解。
